The Legacy
by Scott Washburn
Summary: Twenty years after the war a new avatar makes an amazing discovery on Pandora. Part of my "Aftermath" series.
1. Chapter 1

The Legacy

By Scott Washburn

Author's Note: This is part of my "Aftermath" Stories. This story would fall between Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. If you have not read them I suggest you do before reading this.

2177 AD

Rhada Patel-Kosegan re-read her letter of resignation for about the twelfth time and finally forced her finger to press the send button. There! It was official: she no longer worked for the Resource Development Authority. It seemed like an enormous and scary step to take. She'd worked for the RDA her entire adult life, over twenty-five years—although six of those years had been spent in cryo getting to Pandora. But after all that had happened, after a lot of soul-searching, she had decided to take the leap. Actually, _they_ had decided to take the leap, she and her husband, Ivan. He had sent in his resignation yesterday and he was kidding her about backing out and leaving him in the lurch. Now they had both jumped!

She got up from her desk and walked out of her office and down a corridor and in through another door. Her brother, Max, looked up as she entered "Okay," she said, smiling. "I am unemployed."

"Good!" he replied, smiling back at her. He tapped a few keys on his own computer and then said: "You are now _un_-unemployed! You are an official employee and member of the Heaven's Gate Clan. Welcome, little sister!" He got up from his desk and they hugged.

"Thank you, big brother. And thank you for authorizing the payment to the RDA for our avatars. I can't believe they demanded so much for them!"

"Worth every penny."

"But a hundred kilos of unobtainium?" she continued. "Two _billion_ dollars? That's fifty times what it cost the RDA to make them!"

"Supply and demand," said Max. "Two quite literally unique items that you could not get anywhere else. They knew they could name their own price—and they did."

'We could have told them to go scratch! No one else can link to them! They are worthless to anyone but us!"

"And the unobtainium is worthless to everyone in this star system except for the RDA. It balances out. And it's not like this bankrupted us or anything, Rhada: we still have nearly twenty tons of the stuff in storage."

"Yeah, I suppose…"

"And the value of two additional avatars to the clan can hardly be counted in dollars," continued Max. "Like it or not, the first generation of avatars and drivers aren't going to last forever. We might end up buying a lot more from the RDA for the next generation."

"Really?" said Rhada raising her eyebrows. "Like for my precocious niece and nephew, perhaps?"

"It's a possibility Cynthia and I have discussed," admitted Max. "Now that relations between Pandora and Earth have been normalized we are thinking about sending them to Earth for schooling. The kids are against it, of course, but if we promised them Avatars on graduation, well…"

"Sheesh! All I asked Dad for was a _car_!"

"Yeah," chuckled Max. "Well, the decision is still a few years off yet. But back to the present! Cynthia is planning your initiation party for next Saturday. That work for you and Ivan?"

"Our what?" asked Rhada in confusion.

"Your initiation! You're members of the clan now and we need to celebrate. You know: take off all your clothes, have your body painted, drunken debauchery to follow."

"Be careful who you kid, brother!" said Rhada poking Max in the chest with her finger. "You might get more than you bargain for! Ivan and I are both quite comfortable in little or no clothing. I'm not so sure Cynthia or a lot of the others are!"

"Well, yeah, there is that. But seriously, we'd like to have a party. You are the first new members of the clan in… well, since we had a clan."

Rhada nodded. The negotiations to normalize relations had been very complicated and one of the trickier issues was how to treat the humans who were living at Heaven's Gate, the remains of the former RDA base on Pandora. They weren't Na'vi and yet they had cut their ties and burned their bridges with Earth during the war. They considered themselves citizens of Pandora, but what was their real status? The answer had been simpler than anyone had expected: make them into their own clan. So, they were now the Heaven's Gate Clan and the base was their 'hometree'. Max was the Olo'eyktan, the clan leader. The Na'vi had accepted it with surprisingly little problem. Apparently it fit very well into their world view. Any new humans to arrive on Pandora—and they were starting to arrive—would be considered guests of the clan. If any of them later wanted to be 'adopted', well, that was the business of the Heaven's Gaters.

"Okay, that sounds good," said Rhada. "But as for my new job, you still want me in charge of geology?"

"Sure, as our only geologist, that would seem to make sense. It's all right with you, isn't it?"

"Fine by me. Is there anything in particular you want me to work on?"

Max shook his head. "Nope, investigate anything you find interesting. We have a scientist's paradise here: unlimited budgets, no deadlines, and an incredibly enlightened and understanding boss: me."

Rhada laughed. "Just so long as I change air filters on Tuesdays and pull weeds in the greenhouses on Fridays, right?"

"Well, everyone has their chores," said Max, shrugging.

"Okay, it's still the best deal on two worlds. But as for what I research, I think I know where I'd like to start…"

[Scene Break]

Silwanin followed her mother and Grandmother and Graceaugustine down the slope toward the Tree of Souls. She would rather have been off hunting or playing with her brothers, or riding with Father, but as the eventual tsahik of the Omaticaya the elders had insisted that she come along. It was part of her training. Part of her duty. Being a tsahik was all about duty…

"So, Grace," said her mother, "you have not tried to link with the tree since your… your… I'm not even sure what to call it."

Grace laughed. "I know what you mean, Neytiri! But no, I haven't. Frankly, I've been too afraid to."

"Afraid?" said Grandmother. "Afraid of Eywa?" The elderly tsahik seemed scandalized.

"I know it might seem silly, but…"

"I rather doubt that Eywa will try to suck you back in," said Mother. "She passed you through to your new body for some purpose. She wouldn't take you back against your will."

"But what if I've served Her purpose? Perhaps foiling Carla Pilsen's scheme was all She had in mind for me?" said Grace looking uneasy. "I know I should be grateful for even this brief time back here, but… but I love this world and I don't want to give it up. Not yet."

"From the brief descriptions you have given me of your time with Eywa, I would think you would be eager to return," said Grandmother, scowling a bit.

"I know, I know and it truly was wonderful and I look forward to returning to Her side someday, but still. It wasn't quite the same as this."

"How was it different?" demanded Grandmother. "I really want to understand—especially since I'll be going there myself soon enough."

"Oh posh!" said Mother. "You've got years and years!"

Silwanin rolled her eye as Grandmother began to list all her aches and pains. She'd heard this conversation a dozen times. She yawned.

"Run along and play for a while," said Grace to her suddenly.

"She really should hear all this," said Mother. "She will be tsahik someday."

"A long time in the future," replied Grace. "She has all the energy of her namesake, Neytiri, and forcing her to sit here and listen to a pack of old women like us is torture."

"You are hardly old anymore," said Mother gesturing to Grace's young dreamwalker body, but she nodded to Silwanin. "Go ahead, but not too far."

"Yes, Mother," said Silwanin, failing to not sound too eager to get away. She scrambled up the slope before they changed their minds. She returned to their camp where they had left the horses and got her bow. It had taken all day yesterday to ride here from Hometree. Only Mother had an ikran of her own and it could not carry all four of them. Grandmother had had an ikran when she was younger, but when it died of old age she had never gotten another. Graceaugustine was training as a hunter and someday hoped to bond with an ikran—just as Silwanin did. A few more years and it would be her time. How she longed for that! To fly! When she was younger her father used to give her rides on his ikran, but she was too large for that now. But she still remembered the thrill of it. _Someday… someday…_

After carefully checking both her bow and her arrows she set out in a spiral pattern moving outward from the Tree of Souls. She was not actually trying for a kill because they had brought enough food with them. She was practicing her tracking and stalking skills. The bow was just in case she found more than she bargained for and needed to protect herself. She completed the first circle, discovering nothing more interesting than a sleeping _riti_ hanging from the underside of one of the stone arches. The second and third circuits were similarly dull, although they took longer as the spiral widened.

But halfway through the fourth time around Silwanin heard a strange noise and slowed her pace. Carefully making her way through the foliage she was surprised to see a pair of ikrans sitting quietly on the ground a few spans ahead of her. They wore flying harnesses so they weren't wild, but they were acting very strangely… _oh_. She suddenly realized what they were: the _cloned_ ikrans that the dreamwalkers from Heaven's Gate flew. The humans could use their amazing _technology_ to create copies of real ikrans just as the dreamwalkers used copies of Na'vi. That seemed like cheating to Silwanin. Still, she had a great interest in the humans and the things they could do. Indeed, she and her brothers would not exist except for them. Her own father had once been a dreamwalker until Ewya granted his wish to become fully Na'vi. But despite the great love that he and Mother had for each other, no children would have come from their mating without special help from the humans. Silwanin had spent quite a lot of time at Heaven's Gate as a young child undergoing their multitude of tests and she knew all of the humans who lived there.

But the ikran copies were a relatively new thing. They had only arrived two years earlier along with…

"Hello, I see you Rhadakosegan," said Silwanin spotting the dreamwalker. She did not know her all that well since she hadn't been her that long. But she was the sister of Maxpatel and she did know Max and his wife Cynthia quite well. Cynthia was the scientist who made mother's pregnancies possible. The woman looked up and smiled.

"Oh, hello, Silwanin, I see you." Her Na'vi was nearly perfect, with just a trace of an accent. "I should have expected to run into you: Mo'at mentioned that she and Neytiri would be here today."

"So, Grandmother knows you are here?" she asked in English. Her English was very good, even better than Mother's.

"Oh yes," said Rhada. "We wouldn't come here without her permission."

"That's for sure," added Ivankosegan, emerging from the bushes. Rhada's mate waved. "Hi Silwanin, how are you doing?"

"I am fine."

"She gave us permission to run some tests here on the edges of the area," continued Rhada, she gestured to a pile of equipment at her feet.

"What are you doing?" asked Silwanin, moving closer. The Sky People machines fascinated her.

"I'm trying to discover how these great arches formed," said Rhada, waving her arm at the immense stone formations that rose up all around the Tree of Souls. There were several dozen of them. Some were complete but many had been broken off.

"The songs say that Eywa made them," said Silwanin.

Rhada looked embarrassed. "Well, yes, of course. But I'm hoping to find out _how_ she made them."

"Perhaps Grandmother could ask Her. Perhaps Graceaugustine knows."

Rhada smiled awkwardly. "That would be cheating. I want to find the answer for myself. Besides, I did ask Grace, but she's been very… reluctant to discuss her time with Eywa. Anyway, she's a botanist and I doubt she asked Eywa any questions about geology."

"Geology?" She'd heard the word, but she wasn't certain what it meant.

"It's the science of rocks and the ground beneath us. It studies how mountains and continents form. We know a great deal about Pandoran geology, even why the floating mountains—you call them the Thundering Rocks—float. But these arches don't fit into any of our theories. They are really… strange."

"Science," said Silwanin shaking her head. "The humans I have met all seem… obsessed with this thing you call science. Are all humans like that?"

"No," laughed Ivan. "Most of them back on Earth don't know anything about science and could care less. But all the humans at Heaven's Gate, the ones that decided to stay, were scientists. The group you have been exposed to is decidedly _not_ representative of the whole species."

"I see," said Silwanin, not at all sure that she did see. "But what are you going to do today?"

"We are going to make some sensor probes of that arch right there," said Rhada, pointing. "We want to determine its chemical composition and physical structure. I'm also interested in what it looks like underground, how deep it goes and so forth."

"How can you see what it looks like underground? Won't you have to dig an awful lot? And I doubt Grandmother would approve of that. She doesn't like big holes in the ground."

"Oh no, no digging here!" laughed Rhada. "Mo'at made that quite clear! But we have sensors that can look under the ground without digging. Ivan was just placing some of them."

"Yeah," said Ivan. "I get to do all the fun stuff." He brushed dirt off his hands.

"May I watch you work?" asked Silwanin.

"Sure," said Ivan. "You can even help if you want."

Silwanin readily agreed and leaving her bow with the piled equipment spent the rest of the morning helping Ivan place the _sensors_ in the ground. They consisted of thin tubes about as long as her arm with a few glowing lights on one end. They had to be inserted in the soil so that about half their length was under the ground. They placed them in a wide circle around the base of one of the stone arches. She asked Ivan how they worked but he admitted that his own understanding of the process was fairly limited. "They emit some sort of particles that interact with the rocks and then bounce back to a central receiver. It creates a picture of what's down there. If you want a more detailed answer, you'll have to ask Rhada."

"She must have studied a long time to know so much."

"Oh yeah, years and years. And it never stops, she's always learning new stuff."

"I would like to know so much someday."

Ivan stopped and looked at her. "No reason you couldn't I guess. Now that relations have been normalized there will be a lot more Sky People coming to Pandora. Our clan is even talking about hiring teachers for the human children. Can't see any reason why Na'vi children couldn't join the classes."

Silwanin froze. It had been tried before. Her namesake, her mother's sister, had died in a terrible incident at that first school. She couldn't imagine either her mother or grandmother reacting favorably to such an idea. Still, so much had changed since then…

"Perhaps," was all she said in reply. "But you… you are not a scientist?"

"No," laughed Ivan. "I was a warrior…"

"A warrior!" exclaimed Silwanin. "My father was a warrior, too!"

"No, no, your father was a _real_ warrior," said Ivan. "I was in one of Earth's armies, but I was just a rear-echelon-mo… er, that is, I helped take care of things so that other people could go out and fight."

"You mean like the people in my clan who make arrows and knives? Few of them ever actually go on a hunt, but their skills help the whole clan."

"Yeah, something like that," said Ivan. "It actually sounds better the way you put it. But anyway, no, I'm just a bureaucrat and paper-pusher. I was sent here because I was married to Rhada. Now I get to stick metal rods in the ground." He smiled and Silwanin saw that it was a joke.

They finished placing the rods and then went back to where Rhada was working with some other piece of equipment. "All done," said Ivan.

"Good. I'm just about ready here," she replied without taking her eyes off the glowing display screen. A short while went by and then she looked up. "Sorry to ask, but could you possibly move probe eight about 30 meters farther west?"

Ivan sighed, but shrugged and said: "Sure." He went off to tend to it but Silwanin remained with Rhada.

"When I was very young they did many tests on me at Heaven's Gate. They had machines that could look inside me without cutting me open. Is this the same sort of thing?"

"Yes," said Rhada with a grin. "The details are different, but the basic principle is the same. You are very smart to make that connection, Silwanin."

She shrugged. "Mother encourages me to ask questions. She says it is important for a tsahik to know as much as she can."

"Yes, that's right, you'll be your clan's tsahik someday. It is a great responsibility, isn't it?"

"Yes," sighed Silwanin.

"But you have many, many years before that responsibility will fall on you."

"So I pray."

Ivan returned and Rhada studied her machine some more and declared everything ready. "Okay, switching on." Silwanin somehow expected to see something happening, but there was nothing that she could notice.

"How long will it take?" she asked.

"Oh, a few hours," replied Rhada. "This is modified mining survey equipment. It's normally designed to make a more general survey of a much wider area looking for minerals. I've adapted this for a more detailed scan of a smaller area. Hopefully it will give us a real good picture of this arch."

"I see," said Silwanin. "It is very nearly midday, would you like to come and share a meal with me and the others?"

"Sounds good to me," said Ivan immediately.

Rhada looked uncertain for a moment but then nodded. "The equipment should be all right unattended for that long. Certainly, and thank you." Silwanin retrieved her bow and they walked back toward the Tree of Souls. She waved when she saw the other three.

"Guests for lunch, eh?" said Grace. "Hi, Rhada, Ivan, haven't seen you for a while."

"How could you have seen us?" replied Ivan. "You're always out doing your hunter training. How's that coming, by the way?"

Grace smiled and indicated Mother. "Ask the boss. Neytiri will have the final say about when I'm ready."

Mother tilted her head. "She is an attentive student, just as Jake was. She has more to unlearn than he did. Jake was already trained in many of the basics like moving quietly and taking cover before he came here. I estimate another season and she will be ready."

"You said another two seasons for me," grumbled Silwanin. "And I started much sooner."

"Patience, daughter! Grace's body is full-grown. Some of what will be required of you will take raw strength, and while you might be ready, your limbs are not."

Silwanin bit back any reply, knowing it would do no good. Instead she helped lay out the food for the midday meal. It was simple enough and soon all six of them were squatting in a circle, eating and talking.

"So how goes your investigation of the arches?" asked Grace of Rhada.

"The probes are running right now. I'm eager to see what they tell us." She shook her head. "None of the existing theories I know of can account for them. Even basic questions like why they are arranged they way they are with the Tree of Souls in the middle are puzzling. I mean surely the Tree of Souls must have grown here long after the arches formed. Unless it was deliberately planted, how'd it end up here?"

Grace shrugged. "I'm afraid I didn't discuss that with Eywa. The only advice I can give you is not to make _any_ assumptions about anything."

"So what _did_ you discuss with Eywa?" asked Ivan.

"That is part of what we were talking about today," said Mother. "Nothing like what has happened to Grace has ever occurred before."

Grace chuckled, but it seemed like a nervous chuckle to Silwanin. "These two seem to think I'm some sort of prophet or emissary from Eywa. They keep trying to pick my brain. But there really isn't that much to tell."

"You spent twenty years with Eywa, didn't you?" asked Rhada.

"So the calendar says. It didn't seem nearly that long to me. I don't know if that's just an indication of the network's processor speed, or a subjective reaction on my part or… or…" Grave's smile vanished and her face became almost grim.

"Or what?" demanded Grandmother.

"Well, it has occurred to me that if Eywa is like some vast biological computer network then the information that was me, Grace Augustine, might still be in there. What if what's in here," she tapped a finger against her head, "is just a copy? And an edited copy at that. What if Eywa only sent as much of me as was needed to get the job done? Maybe the _real_ me is still in there with Her. That me might have all the answers about your arches, Rhada."

"That's kind of… spooky," said Ivan.

"Yeah," said Grace. "It bothers me quite a bit—which is why I'm not all that keen to talk about it."

"But… but do you still have all your memories of your early life, before you… uh… died?" asked Rhada.

"How the hell should I know? I mean it all _seems_ to be there, but how would I know if something was missing? I can remember the courses I took in college, all the papers I wrote, but maybe I had a passionate love affair at age nineteen. Just because I can't remember any such thing now doesn't mean it never happened."

"Well, somebody would know…" said Ivan.

"Oh and like I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life chasing down everyone who might have known me to cross-check my memories against theirs? No thanks!"

"I doubt that any of them would recognize you now anyway, Grace," laughed Ivan.

"True."

"It seems to me," said Mother, "that you should live the life that's been given you and not worry about the rest."

"And that's exactly what I intend to do," said Grace. "The past is past. I'm going to look to the future."

That seemed to close the subject and the conversation turned to other matters. The meal was finished and Rhada and Ivan said good-bye and returned to their studies. Silwanin would have liked to go with them, but the elders wanted her to stay with them and she reluctantly did as they wanted. Duty…

[Scene Break]

"So how did you make out today?" asked Max Patel.

"Fine—damn!" said Rhada.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. After a day in my avatar with only three fingers on each hand I find that I have trouble typing once I'm back in human form. My little fingers don't know what to do."

Max chuckled. "I guess there were a few advantages to the old-style avatars after all. But everything else went okay?"

"Yeah, Ivan and I bumped into Mo'at, Neytiri, Silwanin and Grace while we were there. Silwanin helped us place the sensors. What a sweet kid she is."

"Yeah," said Max. "I think it was her that finally convinced Cynthia that we should start our own family. So, you got some good readings?"

"I got _some_ readings. I'm not sure how good they are."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there's nothing wrong with the raw data, but the big picture just doesn't make any sense. Do you remember that theory you had on how the arches formed?"

"It wasn't _my_ theory, but yeah, I know which one you're talking about."

"Well, it's wrong. Or at least part of it's wrong. The theory said that while this area was still molten millions of years ago that unobtainium got mixed with harder rocks and the strong magnetic field twisted them into the arch shapes. Then, after the rock cooled, the softer rock got eroded away, leaving the arches. Well, there is definitely a high concentration of unobtainum in the arches, no doubt about that. It's so high, in fact that the arches are nearly ready to float away like the floating mountains."

"Good thing the RDA didn't know that," said Max. "They might have tried to haul the arches away."

"Yeah, but as for the rest of the theory… I don't think so. If the theory was right, then the arches ought to extend a long way underground. The magnetic field would have continued to shape them without regard to where the ground level is today."

"You're saying they don't?"

"Nope. Or at least not the arch we scanned today. Look here," she said pointing to a display monitor. "The arch extends down about ten meters below the current ground level and then stops. There's about a meter of soil and then nine meters of broken up rock and debris and then it hits a solid mass of bedrock. The arch is resting right on that."

"Huh. Any theory on why?"

"No, it's way too early to start speculating. Especially based on just this one scan. I really need to do scans on the other arches. Do you think Mo'at will let us?"

"Well, if you didn't leave any empty beer cans lying around or spray paint graffiti on that arch I can't see why she'd object. I'll give Norm a call and have him ask her."

"Thanks, Max, I'd appreciate it."

[Scene Break]

Silwanin pushed the probe down to the proper depth and then touched the activating switch. The status light blinked green and she nodded in satisfaction. After weeks of helping Rhada she was getting as proficient at this as Ivan. She headed back to where Rhada was waiting with the central scanner. She arrived just as Ivan appeared. "All set?" asked Rhada.

"Yes," said Silwanin. Ivan just made a gesture with his fist with his thumb sticking straight up.

"Okay, here we go," said Rhada. She touched a few controls and the scanner went into operation. Silwanin peered over Rhada's shoulder at the display, but despite the number of times they had done this, she could still make no sense of what was on the screen. Rhada stepped back and nodded her satisfaction.

"Lunchtime?" asked Ivan.

"Yes, everything is working properly. We've got a few hours to wait." The threesome busied themselves for a few minutes getting out the food for their 'picnic' as the humans called it.

"So, do you think this will be the last one of these we have to do?" asked Ivan once they were settled.

"Maybe," said Rhada. "Can't really tell yet."

"But have you discovered anything?" asked Silwanin. Weeks of effort had not seemed to have produced any results.

Rhada smiled. "A good scientist doesn't start jumping to conclusions before she has all the data. But tell me, Silwanin, what does all your training to be a tsahik entail?"

Silwanin blinked at this sudden change of subject. "Well, right now it is mostly to attune myself to the… the melody of the forest. The tsahik's duty is to interpret the will of Eywa and Eywa rarely speaks plainly. She talks to us through the plants and animals all around us. Not literally talks, like we are doing now, but She sends messages that can be read by those who have the eyes to see. If something the clan is doing is not to Eywa's liking, She will find a way to tell us."

"'The melody of the forest', I like that," said Rhada. "But it sounds like a great responsibility."

"Yes."

"But then who is really in charge of the clan?" asked Ivan. "The Olo'eyktan, or the Tsahik?"

Silwanin shrugged. "Ideally they will work together to find the path that is best both for the People and for Eywa. Neither one can command the other."

"And someday you will be mated to the next Olo'eyktan?" asked Rhada. "How is he selected? I know it cannot be one of your brothers, even though they are the sons of the current Olo'eyktan."

"No, the new tsahik is always the child of the Olo'eyktan and the old tsahik. This is usually a girl, although not always. A mate is then selected who will become the new Olo'eyktan. Sometimes the person is selected from inside the clan and sometimes not."

"Really?" said Ivan in surprise. "You'd bring in a new leader from outside?"

"Why not? It brings in new blood and new points of view. It can help prevent conflicts between the clans. Right now, I believe, my mother is considering a male from the Lutapawni clan as a mate for me. His mother is someone my mother met during the war."

"Are all Na'vi marriages arranged like that?" asked Rhada.

"No, not usually. Most are free to pick as they will. And sometimes things… happen."

"Like with your own parents?" asked Ivan with a smile.

"Yes."

"It sounds like the Na'vi have a system that works very well."

"It has always been this way. For as long as anyone remembers."

"And how long is that?"

"A long, long time."

[Scene Break]

Max Patel rapped on the door frame of Rhada's office and then went in. His sister looked up from her monitor and smiled. "Hi Max, thanks for coming so quickly. Shut the door, will you?"

Puzzled, Max did as she asked and then sat down. "So what's up? You sounded… concerned over the com."

"Well, yes, I am concerned. I find that I have a problem."

"What sort of problem? Technical?"

"No, ethical."

"Ethical?" What sort of ethical problem could a geologist be facing?

"Yes. My research on the stone arches had taken a really unexpected turn and I'm not sure how to handle this."

"So what's the problem? You were trying to explain how the arches formed naturally…"

"And that _is_ the problem! I can't explain how they formed naturally—because they didn't!"

[Scene Break]

Max's mouth was hanging open. Rhada almost wanted to laugh. Almost.

"What… what do you mean they didn't form naturally?" he asked in a voice almost too faint to hear.

"I mean that they are not a natural formation. They were constructed. Built—by someone."

"Who?"

"Well, the most obvious choice would be the Na'vi. Who else?"

"But… but the Na'vi are basically at a Neolithic stage of development! How could they possibly have built structures like that?"

"I don't know," said Rhada. "My working theory is that there must have been a more advanced Na'vi culture in the distant past that has since fallen. The arches, by the way, are at least 50,000 years old."

"You… you're sure of all this?"

"As sure as I can be with my current data. Here, look." She swung a monitor around so they could both look at it and brought up a 3D image. "Here is the Tree of Souls. It's sitting in a well, a well that if you remove all the tree roots and miscellaneous debris is almost perfectly circular. Then if you step out about twenty meters we see that this well is sitting inside an even bigger well that is also circular—except for this area here which seems to have collapsed. The rim of this second well is about twenty meters wide and then it starts to step back down again. A lot of this is buried now so it's hardly visible from the air."

"It… it looks like a step pyramid, except the steps are circular instead of square!" exclaimed Max.

"Yes, exactly," said Rhada. "It steps down eight times, with each step being about ten meters high and varying in width from thirty to fifty meters. Notice how all of the arches have their bases resting precisely in the middle of one of the steps. These three were broken off and are completely buried now so, again, the pattern isn't so obvious from the air."

"This… this is incredible!" cried Max. "It will completely change our view of the Na'vi!"

"Yes. And there's my ethical dilemma."

"What do you mean?"

"Should we tell them?"

"Well of course…! Why wouldn't… Er, well…" Max mumbled something and then stopped.

"You see the problem," said Rhada nodding grimly. "How do you tell someone: 'you were great once'? How would they react? The Na'vi seem very happy right now, I'd really hate to mess things up for them."

"But… but we can't keep this a secret!" said Max. "As scientists we have to report this!"

"Yes, but to who? If we tell the Na'vi it might anger them, demoralize them, or maybe just bore them. Maybe they already know, although nothing we've learned about them would indicate it. If we report this back to Earth it could send waves of archeologists and xeno-anthropoligists coming to Pandora with all sorts of unforeseeable consequences. We have to move very carefully, Max."

"Yes… yes, I can see that."

"And you also realize that my conclusions here are extremely preliminary, based solely on remote sensor readings. I'm not ready to make this public without a lot more confirmation."

"So what's your next step?"

"I think there are two avenues of approach. First we need to get some detailed deep-radar probes from orbit of the rest of Pandora. If there really was a prior civilization, I can't believe that these are the only remains. There have to be others. The other avenue is to take a look inside what we've found here."

"Inside?" exclaimed Max. "You mean…?

"Yes, the scans indicate a series of open spaces within and beneath the structure. Some of them are quite extensive. There appear to be two entrances. One here," she indicated a spot on the display, "is buried very deeply, so we can rule that out. But this one here, looks to be only about a dozen meters down and is well away from the Tree of Souls itself. We might be able to get in there without arousing the Na'vi."

"Rhada, we _cannot_ go snooping around in there without the Omaticaya's permission! We just finished convincing them that they can trust the humans. This could ruin all that. As your Olo'eyktan, I will not permit it."

"Oh, throwing your weight around are you, Big Brother?" said Rhada. "I was wondering how long it would be until all that power went to your head." But then she laughed. "No, you're right. But I was thinking that perhaps we could approach the three Omaticaya who most likely won't go nuts over this news."

To Be Continued


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Norm Spellman sat with his mouth hanging open. "Could… could you say that again, Max?"

Max grinned a humorless grin. "Yeah, that's about the way I reacted when Rhada told me. But it appears to be true: there was an earlier—more advanced—civilization on Pandora and they built a massive structure underneath where the Tree of Souls is now. We'd like to investigate it, but we realize how sensitive this all might be to the Na'vi."

Norm looked around at the other people in the room: Jake, Grace, Rhada and Ivan. They were in one of the Heaven's Gate avatar labs. The atmosphere was Earth standard, which allowed the humans to breathe normally. The mix would not harm a Na'vi unless the exposure was in terms of days rather than hours. Even so, Norm felt like all the air had just been sucked out of the room. "You… you've got data to back this up, I assume," he choked out.

"Yup. Rhada, will you give them your little presentation?"

"Sure." Rhada got up and activated a display. "Now, as you know, I started out trying to determine how the great stone arches around the Tree of Soul were formed…"

Fifteen minutes later Rhada sat down again and Norm let out the breath it felt like he'd been holding the entire time. _"Holy shit!"_ he gasped. Grace looked similarly gobsmacked. Jake just looked puzzled. "This is… is… unbelievable!"

"The implications are… staggering," said Grace, a deep frown on her face.

"You didn't get any inkling of this from Eywa?" asked Rhada.

"No. Nothing."

"Do you think perhaps she deliberately didn't tell you? I mean, I would think that she would know something about this."

"Not necessarily," said Max. "We have to assume that Eywa came into existence over a long period of time and evolved along the way rather than suddenly springing into existence full-grown. We have no way of knowing how long that took or when she reached a state of what we'd call consciousness. It's possible she didn't reach her current state until after the arches were built and this theorized civilization fell."

Grace made a non-committal grunting noise and her hand passed in front of her mouth as if reaching for a phantom cigarette.

"So why all the long faces?" asked Jake. "I mean this is all very interesting, I guess, but is it really that big a deal?"

"We are hoping that it's not," said Rhada. "But to be safe we are proceeding as if it is. We have no idea how the Na'vi will react if they learn about this. Hopefully they'll react just as you are doing: 'Hey, that's cool, but so what?' But what if this undermines some fundamental belief of theirs? What if it conflicts with their whole view of the world? It could do damage that we can't foresee."

"Yeah," said Norm. "Imagine if something like this happened back on Earth. The uproar, the crackpot religions that would rise up…"

"The Na'vi are a lot more rational than that," said Jake.

"Yeah, they probably are. But do you want to take the risk?" Jake frowned.

"Jake," said Rhada, "has Neytiri ever said anything to you about what the Na'vi know about the distant past? Has she ever said anything that might indicate they know something about a prior civilization?"

"No, not really. When she's talked about really long ago, she just calls it 'the time of the first songs'. Apparently that was when the first Toruk Macto lived. But I have no idea how long ago that was, a thousand years or… fifty thousand."

"The answers may lie inside the structure beneath the Tree of Souls," said Max. "We'd like your permission to take a look."

A nervous feeling passed through Norm. The scientist in him screamed 'yes'. But he had thrown in his lot with the Na'vi. He'd transferred himself into his avatar, married a Na'vi woman, had children… What might this discovery do to all their futures? "All you have to do is say 'no', Jake," he said. "That would be the end of it."

"Well, not exactly," said Rhada, looking uncomfortable. "I've asked the RDA orbital station to do some deep-scan radar surveys of this continent and I've identified several sites which might contain ruins of this earlier civilization. If you refuse us permission to look here, we could try those other sites."

"The RDA knows about this?" asked Jake in alarm.

"No. I just told them we wanted the scans to look for fault-lines to help in earthquake prediction. They know I'm a geologist and it's a perfectly normal request. Unless you knew what to look for, you'd never notice anything out of the ordinary. I'm a loyal citizen of Pandora, Jake, I won't do anything to jeopardize our home. That's why we're having this meeting."

"Damn," growled Jake. "But you're telling me that if I do say 'no' you'll go dig up those other sites?"

"I don't know," sighed Rhada. "None of them are close by and we'd have to negotiate with the clans who live there and I really don't want to go against your wishes. It's just that…

"You need to know."

"It's what we do, Jake. To be a scientist is an uncompromising search for the truth. I can't just pretend I don't know about this."

"No matter how many people it might hurt."

Rhada looked really unhappy and Norm knew what she was feeling. A new thought struck him. "Jake, one thing to consider is that if we let Rhada go ahead, then we are in control of it—to whatever extent anyone can be in control of it. As part of the treaty we've agreed to allow more human researchers to come to Pandora. What if ten or twenty years down the road one of them stumbles across this? The cat would be completely out of the bag and we'd have a hell of a time putting it back in. At least this way we can decide what information is released and who gets to see it. Scientific knowledge can be suppressed—but only for a while. Sooner or later it will come out."

"So you think we should do this?" asked Jake.

Norm held up his hands. "It's your call, boss."

"Well, no it's not and there's the real problem for you. This is 'Eywa Business', too, and that means Mo'at has at least as big a say as I do. Somehow I can't see her agreeing to this."

"No… but isn't she scheduled to go visit the Lutapawnis and check out your potential future son-in-law pretty soon? She'll be gone for what? A month? Two?"

"Wait a second," said Jake, an appalled look on his face. "Are you suggesting we try to sneak this past her while she's away?"

"It would be an option…"

"Not a very good one! And I'd still have to tell Neytiri."

"Would you?"

"Norm, I tried holding information back from her twenty-two years ago and you remember how well _that_ turned out, don't you? No! No way!"

"What do you think, Grace?" The woman had said virtually nothing and that wasn't like her.

Grace shook her head. "I don't know."

A gloomy, awkward silence fell on the room, but suddenly Rhada stood up.

"Neytiri is the most truthful person I've ever met, Jake. She's like a scientist in that regard. Talk to her about this and see how she feels. I'll accept whatever she says."

[Scene Break]

"I never thought she'd agree," said Ivan, Tossing a shovel of dirt over his shoulder.

"To tell you the truth, neither did I," said Rhada, smiling at her husband. "Part of me was hoping she wouldn't."

"Really?"

"It would have given me a legitimate excuse not to pursue this. I mean I'm incredibly excited about this, it could be one of the biggest discoveries ever. But at the same time, I feel like I'm walking into a minefield. What if what we find really does screw things up for the Na'vi?"

"Well, maybe we won't find anything at all," said Ivan. "Don't start planning your trip to Stockholm to pick up your Nobel Prize yet, girl!"

Rhada laughed and pushed her own shovel into the dirt. The dig had started that morning with the arrival of the avatars from Heaven's Gate. None of them had ikrans, so they had to travel by horse—a two day journey. They were trying to be as unobtrusive as possible: no helicopters, no big power tools, just good old muscles. Big muscles, avatar muscles. The location was in a gully on the north side of the structure. It was over two hundred meters away from the Tree of Souls and well-concealed by the ground and vegetation. They were hoping that if anyone did come by the area they wouldn't notice them. Jake was doing all he could to send his hunting parties in other directions. The fewer people who knew about this the better.

They worked steadily until midday and then took a break. They had moved a lot of dirt, but there was still a long way to go. "How long do you think this will take?" asked Pablo Desante.

"Based on the scans, we will have to move around a thousand cubic meters of earth and rock to uncover the entrance," said Rhada. "With eight or ten of us working and each of us moving three or four meters a day it ought to take about four weeks."

"Oh joy. What fun."

"Well, just be glad you can do this as an avatar. In our human bodies it would take four times as long."

"So, about a month," said Ivan. "How long will Mo'at be gone?"

"Jake says that it will take her four weeks just to get to the Lupatawni Hometree by horse—she's making a couple of side trips to visit other clans. She'll be expected to remain there at least a couple of weeks."

"And another three or four weeks back. So, two months maybe. That doesn't give us a lot of time inside in there if you expect us to get the hole filled in before she returns."

"No, we'll have to be ready to take scans and holos of everything we can while we have the opportunity."

"So, back to work," he said, standing up and grabbing a shovel.

They worked steadily for four days. On the fifth day Jake flew out to take a look. "How's it going?" he asked Rhada.

"Good!" she replied. "Better than I'd hoped. When I did the calculations for the digging I used standard reference sources for civil engineering and I forgot to allow for the lesser gravity on Pandora. Not only can we move more in a day, but the sides of the excavation can be steeper without risk of collapse so we don't have to remove quite so much earth. Still, we've got another two weeks at least."

"Aren't you going to be hitting some big rocks as you get deeper?"

"Yeah, but one of the power tools we did bring is an ultra-sonic jackhammer. It can slice through rock like a knife through butter. We can chop any big rocks into small rocks very quickly and carry them out."

"Sounds good. But aren't you missing part of your work force?" he looked around.

"Some of them are sleeping. Since we have to keep a watch at night for safety anyway, we decided to work round the clock in shifts."

"Makes sense," he said nodding.

"So… So Neytiri didn't come out with you today?" asked Rhada.

Jake frowned and shook his head. "She's been acting… strangely about this whole thing. I was surprised when she said yes, but it's like you said: she has this unstoppable drive to know the truth about things. But I think maybe she's afraid to know the truth about this. So she'd hedging her bets. She's letting you investigate, but she's not coming to see for herself. At least not yet."

"Plausible deniability?" asked Rhada.

"I don't think that's it. She's going to tell Mo'at what she's done when she gets back. But she was definitely surprised by this whole thing. She says there's nothing that she knows that could explain it, but perhaps Mo'at has some shared memories from earlier Tsahik's that could shed some light. I asked her if she thought this discovery might disrupt Na'vi society but her answer was pretty noncommittal."

"Sounds like she's as baffled and worried about this as we are."

"Yeah. But on the bright side at least she didn't suddenly fly into a frenzy and scream: 'Oh no! You've uncovered the prison of the Dark One! You fools have doomed us all!'" Jake quirked up his mouth in a crooked smile.

Rhada laughed. "No, I don't think we'll find anything alive or undead in there."

"What _do_ you think we'll find in there?"

Rhada sighed. "I keep thinking about that all the time I'm digging. Based on similar structures seen on Earth it could be a tomb, a temple, a fortress or a really big monument to impress the neighbors or maybe to honor Eywa."

"Which do you think is the most likely?"

"There seems to be way too much open space inside to be a tomb. At least not one like the Egyptian pyramids. I suppose it could be some sort of crypt for a royal family that kept getting used generation after generation. But it still seems awfully large for that. As for a fortress, I'm no expert on military engineering, but this doesn't seem to be constructed in a way to have much military value. So I guess I'm tending more towards a temple or a monument of some sort—although I can't see a reason for all the space inside if it's a monument. I wish we had a real archeologist, or even an historian in the clan. I'm out of my depth here."

"So, a temple maybe. Huh. The Na'vi revere Eywa deeply, but to build a huge thing like this just seems out of character for them."

"Well, we're talking about a different civilization, Jake. No telling what they were like compared to modern Na'vi."

"Yeah. I've gotta admit that I'm getting pretty curious about this myself. Got an extra shovel?"

[Scene Break]

Silwanin carefully pushed a leaf aside and peered through the gap. Yes, there was Father's ikran, this was definitely where he'd been going to secretly for all these days. But who were all these other people? And why were all those horses here? What were they doing? There were big piles of dirt everywhere. Were they digging? Yes, she could see people with tools for digging and others carrying away dirt in baskets. Oh, there was Rhada!

_She must have found something with the probes!_

After they had finished with all the scanning Rhada had simply said that it was going to take her quite a while to study all the information. Silwanin had not heard anything from her since then, many, many days ago. But it was clear that she must have found something. Something very interesting.

And she hadn't told her.

She felt hurt. She had done a lot of work, provided a lot of help. She had been made to feel like part of a team. But apparently she wasn't part of the team. But her father was. And there was Grace, too. And UncleNorm. A much shorter figure caught her attention and she recognized Maxpatel. _Everyone seems to know about this but me!_ Her hurt was turning to anger. But then she realized that all of the other people there were dreamwalkers from Heaven's Gate. There wasn't a single native-born Na'vi present. _What is going on?_

Most of the activity was behind one of the big dirt piles and she couldn't see from where she was. Slowly and silently she began to shift her position to get a better look. It wouldn't do to get caught now. Not after all the trouble she'd gone to to slip away from Hometree—and Mother—unseen. Clearly she wasn't supposed to know about this and she didn't think Father would be too happy to find her here.

She'd left her horse on the other side of the hill and worked her way here unseen. Moving into a position where she could see would be a little tricky, but she thought she could do it. Fortunately of all the people she was trying to avoid, only Father and Grace had any hunting skills and their attention was on the hillside, not in her direction.

She reached a position where she could see a little better. There was a long trench dug into the hill and a dark opening at the end. But what was it? If she moved a little further to her left she might be able to see more. She slowly crawled around a small tree…

…and found herself looking at a blue foot… 

…attached to a blue leg…

…attached to…

"H-hello, Mother. I see you."

"And I see _you!_" said her mother. "What are you doing, child?" She reached down and took hold of her queue and gently but irresistibly hauled her upright.

"I… I was curious."

"Really? Your father once told me a Sky People expression about curiosity killing a cat. I don't know what a cat is, but I could certainly see curiosity killing _you_ someday!" She turned her toward where all the people were working and marched her forward.

"How did you find me?" asked Silwanin.

"I'm your mother," she replied, as if that answered everything. As they approached the dig site, people began to turn in their direction. Father was facing away from them, but when UncleNorm saw them he looked at him and pointed over his shoulder with an amused look on his face. Father spun around and his eyes got very wide.

"Oh crap," he said.

To Be Continued


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Rhada almost laughed at the expression on Jake's face, but this was no laughing matter. Silwanin, propelled by Neytiri, stopped in front of Jake and touched her forehead. "I see you, Father," she said meekly.

Jake made a low growling noise and then said: "What are doing here? How did you get here so early in the morning?"

"I noticed that she wasn't in her hammock when I woke up in the night," said Neytiri. "When it was light enough to do tracking, I found her trail and it led straight here."

"You rode here? At night?"

"Only part of the time was at night, Father," said Silwanin. "And I had been coming here along that trail for days and days when I was helping Rhadakosegan." She stared right at Rhada with an accusing look on her face. "I had done much work, given much help, I thought that I had earned the right to see the results."

"She does have a point," said Rhada, feeling a bit guilty.

"No she doesn't!" snapped Jake, scowling at Rhada before resuming his scowling at Silwanin. "It was very dangerous to ride out here alone at night! To leave without telling anyone! I expected more sense and responsibility from you, Daughter!"

Silwanin flinched back from her father's anger and Rhada could see that the words hurt. But then she straightened up and thrust forward her chin. "For all my life both of you have taught me about my responsibility, my duty, to both the People and to Eywa. How I was to be ever vigilant to any danger to either. But now when I sensed that something was happening that affected the People and Eywa—something that neither of you would confide in me—and took the initiative to find out the truth, now you say that I'm lacking in responsibility and derelict in my duty!"

Now it was Jake and Neytiri who flinched. "I think she's got you, Jake," said Norm.

Jake glared at Norm and then turned his frown back on Silwanin, but all he said was: "We'll talk about this later. But now that we're _all_ here, let's get this show on the road."

Rhada gave a sigh of relief and then turned back to supervising the last bit of excavation. After three weeks of hard work the entrance to the site was finally open. The trench they had dug led to a stone wall with a rectangular entrance. That entrance had been plugged with a jumble of rocks and dirt, but the jackhammer had proved its worth and now the last few rocks were being hauled out and pitched on the piles that had grown up on either side of the dig, Max was unloading equipment and portable lights from some of the horses. He had brought every bit of scanning and imaging gear that he could get his hands on from Heaven's Gate. As she watched, he pulled out a bundle of small objects and started handing them out to everyone.

"What's this?" she asked when he came over to her.

"Atmosphere safety analyzer," he replied. "We don't know how much fresh air can get into there. We'll have to make sure we don't breathe up all the oxygen when we get to the deepest parts."

"Good thinking. I'm guessing that there were ventilation shafts at one time, but they're probably all plugged up by now. I really wish I could have gotten better scans of the interior, but the Flux created too much interference."

"Okay, I think we're ready," said Norm. "Rhada, you discovered it so you ought to be the first one to go in."

"What? So I can set off all the booby traps?" she asked, smiling.

"Of course. It's traditional."

"'Booby traps'?" asked Silwanin, looking anxiously from face to face.

"It's a human joke," said Ivan. "I hope."

"I can't imagine there being any traps to begin with," said Rhada. "And after 50,000 years I can't believe any would be still working. So, Dr. Spellman, give me one of those lights and you can follow me." He handed her one, she switched it on, and headed for the entrance. The others followed, all carrying more of the lights.

The entrance was a very ordinary post-and-lintel construction, tall enough for a Na'vi with about a half-meter to spare and wide enough for two people side-by-side. The stones were massive and unadorned. The diggers had already penetrated a few meters inside while clearing the passage, but now Rhada pressed forward into the unknown.

It was very dry and dusty and that surprised her considering how much rain this region of Pandora received. The builders must have been very clever to keep the water out after this long. She hoped that the sudden influx of moist air through the opening didn't damage whatever they might find. Once again she wished they had a trained archeologist on the team. She cringed at the thought of how much damage they might inadvertently do here.

The passage went straight for about twenty meters and then ended in a 'T" intersection. All around the intersection were stacks of cut stone blocks piled up against the walls. The new corridor ran to the right and left, but in the wavering light she could see that in both directions it only went five or six meters before turning again, back to the original direction. She started to go to the right, but almost immediately Max said: "Wait a minute, what's that on the floor there?" He indicated a small lump of something almost at her feet.

She squatted down and held the light very close. Whatever it had been looked crushed and sort of like…"Metal?" asked Max kneeling next to her.

"Yeah, bronze if I had to guess," said Rhada.

"The Na'vi don't do a lot of metalwork, do they?"

"Not much," confirmed Jake, pushing to the front. "Some raw copper from time to time, but that's about all I've seen. Mostly for decorations rather than tools."

"Huh," said Rhada, standing up and moving on. She turned the corner to the left, went another five meters and turned left again. There she saw that the corridor leading the other way at the first intersection had also doubled back around to meet this corridor at another "T" intersection. She passed several more of the bronze lumps on the floor.

At the second intersection another corridor continued off into the heart of the structure. More stacks of stone were piled here, too. As she advanced, Rhada suddenly noticed something attached to the wall to her right, just above her head. She held up her light and studied it. It looked to be made of bronze just like…

"They're lanterns!" she exclaimed. "The other ones were like this, but they fell off the wall and were crushed."

"Yes, look," said Norm, coming forward, "see the remains of the cloth hanging from it there? They're just like the lights we have in Hometree using the luminous _hatang_ beetle larvae. We put them in a thin cloth bag and hang them from the tree. These people made these bronze lanterns to keep the bags inside, I guess."

"You folks getting pictures of all this?" Rhada called back over her shoulder.

"Every meter of it," replied Pablo. "Don't worry Rhada."

She nodded and continued forward. The corridor went another twenty meters and then opened out into a somewhat larger, circular space. To the right there was a curving ramp sloping down and to the left another ramp curved upward.

"Okay, folks, which way do we go?"

[Scene Break]

Silwanin looked around her in growing wonder—and unease. If she was understanding what she was overhearing correctly, this place had been built by some long lost clan of the People? She had never heard of such a thing! The effort to carve and move these huge stones must have been enormous. Why had they done it? What was this place for? She couldn't imagine anyone ever _living_ in a place like this. Despite the bright lights carried by Rhada's friends, despite the lanterns that must have existed at one time, the darkness, the _weight_ of the rock seemed to press in on her. Only the fact that her mother and father were here kept her from fleeing back into the light and air. Now they were halted at a spot where the path went in two directions…

"I suggest we split up," said UncleNorm. "Half of us are getting in the way of the other half. And considering our limited time, we should cover as much ground as quickly as we can."

After a short debate this was agreed on and some of the group went up while the rest went down. Silwanin was glad that her parents and Rhada and some of the others took the upward route. She didn't want to go any farther down! Not that it really made any difference: they were still buried under a mountain of stone. The other party started down and she followed her parents on the upward ramp. She had only gone a few paces when she suddenly stopped and exclaimed: "It's just like Hometree!"

The others looked around and they saw it too: the spiral ramps were just like the pathway at the core of the great tree the Omaticaya lived in! "Well, I'll be damned," said her father.

"Not much doubt this was built by the Na'vi," chuckled Maxpatel.

"Maybe… " said Rhada and she frowned.

"What?" prompted Father.

"Something has been bothering me ever since we came in here," she replied. "Now I realize what it is: there's no decoration. Except for those lanterns, everything is just plain stone. Expertly cut and laid, to be sure, but completely lacking in any carvings or artistic embellishments. That's very un-Na'vi-like; they decorate everything!"

Silwanin realized that Rhada was right. She'd never given it any thought, but the People always decorated everything they made. Tools, weapons, clothing, all were given some bit of decoration. It just seemed the proper thing to do.

"I had thought that maybe the entrance we chose was just the back door," continued Rhada. "Maybe it was rarely used and they never bothered to decorate it. But this ramp is in the core of the structure. I'm thinking that my guess about this being a temple was wrong."

"Too soon to tell," said Maxpatel. "Let's keep going."

They continued up the ramp. It made one complete circle and then arrived at another chamber identical to the one below. The ramp continued upward, but there was also an opening in the wall. "According to scans there ought o be a large open space on this level," said Rhada. She led the way through the opening.

As Rhada had predicted, there was a large space, although Silwanin would hardly refer to it as 'open'. Massive stone columns sprouted from the floor every few spans to hold up the roof. They marched away into the dark in all directions. Many of the columns had more of the lanterns attached to them.

"Well, someone definitely spent some time in here!" said Ivan. There were small mounds of stuff scattered all over the place. They all squatted down to examine some of them, but it was very difficult to determine what they were. Cloth? Wickerwork? Pottery? A few bits of greenish metal—_bronze_ Rhada had called it—were mixed in here and there. But it was all so fragile and crumbly it was impossible to tell what it had all once been.

"We'll have to take some of this back to the lab for a detailed examination," said Maxpatel. "We're just messing it up here."

They spread out and explored the level, but it was basically the same from the core where the ramp was to the outer curving walls. A message from the other party told them that they had discovered a similar, even larger space on the level below.

"So what do you make of all this Grace?" asked Father. "You've hardly said a word."

"I don't know," said the woman shaking her head.

"Is something wrong, Grace?" asked Mother. "You've been acting very… oddly."

"Yeah, I guess I have, and I've been feeling odder. I can't explain it, but I have a very… well, not _bad _feeling about this, but very unsettling. Something is just… _wrong_ here. As a scientist I should be incredibly excited about a find like this, but instead I feel like I want to seal this place up and forget we ever found it."

"Too late for that," said Maxpatel. "Shall we head up to the next level?"

"Might as well," said Rhada. "No decorations here, either. Nothing to give a clue about what this was all for."

"Somehow I was expecting to find coffins or rows of mummies in here," said Ivan. "But there's nothing. We've still got a lot more questions than answers."

"Maybe it was a fortress after all," said Jake. "This might have been a barracks or something. They wouldn't bother decorating something like that."

"Maybe." Rhada led the way back to the ramp and headed up. As they neared the next level they encountered a few loose stones scattered on the ramp and then many more as they arrived at the top. Rhada shown her light around and they could see that the ramp leading up was completely blocked with stone and rubble.

"Well! This is as high as we'll get without a lot more digging," said Father.

"Let's explore this level before we do any digging," said Rhada. "It's not as large as the last one. The structure gets smaller as we move up." They passed through the opening in the wall into an open chamber that looked just like the one below. They spread out to explore it. Silwanin took one of the lights and headed off on her own. With all the columns, she quickly lost sight of the others, although she could see their lights and the moving shadows they caused.

There were little piles of stuff scattered here and there just as there had been earlier, but nothing caught her eye. As Rhada had said, this level was smaller and she soon reached the outer wall. She was turning to go back when she suddenly froze…

"Father!" she gasped. "I… I found something!"

[Scene Break]

Rhada heard Silwanin's cry and quickly ran toward her. Everyone else had the same idea and within seconds a crowd had gathered around the girl. Not surprisingly Jake and Neytiri had reached her first. Jake looked over his shoulder and said: "Ivan, we found a mummy for you."

"What?" exclaimed Rhada. "Let me through, please!" She got to the front of the crowd and saw that it was true: the long-dead body of a Na'vi lay there. It was a male if she wasn't mistaken. The shoulders and head were propped up against one of the columns with the legs stretched out in front of it. It looked like someone who had just decided to take a nap—and then never got up again. Looking closer she could see that it was not a true mummy, there were no wrapping of any kind, although a few scraps of cloth clung here and there. It was just a thoroughly desiccated body with the dried skin covering the bones. The eye-sockets were empty but the teeth were in surprisingly good condition.

"I wonder who he was?" asked Max.

"And what he was doing here all alone?" asked Jake.

"What's this?" said Rhada, spotting something next to the body. She squatted down and tentatively poked at a fist-sized lump of what appeared to be bronze. A few scraps of wood sticking out from it gave the answer: "It's a hammer."

"And look," said Max excitedly, "here's a chisel to go with it!" he pointed to another chunk of metal a meter off to the side.

"But what was he carving…?" demanded Jake. They all started to look around, shining their lights in every direction.

"Look!" cried Pablo Desante. He pointed to the curving outer wall and Rhada gasped when she saw the lines carved in it.

"There's more here!" shouted someone else. The crowd exploded and spread out along the wall, each person adding to the clamor as more and more carvings were discovered. Rhada stood there with her mouth hanging open. Grace was next to her.

"I think you found what you were looking for, Rhada."

To Be Continued


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Rhada, you need to get some sleep," said Max looking at his sister. "You can't keep driving yourself like this."

Rhada looked up from her desk and nodded. But then she turned back to the ring of computer displays. "We're running out of time, Max. Mo'at will be back any day now and she'll probably shut us down."

"Yeah, but it won't do anyone any good if you collapse! You spend all day running your avatar and then when you disconnect you spend most of the night here, analyzing the day's findings. You get what? About three hours of sleep a day?"

"About. But I'm nearly ready to present my findings to Jake and the others. One or two more days and I should have it."

"Really?" said Max. "I've helped as much as I could with the diagrams and I do agree with some of your conclusions. But… but this is so momentous do you really want to release all this so soon? Shouldn't we take more time to re-evaluate the findings, try to find some alternate hypotheses?"

"Under normal circumstances I'd agree with you. But everyone saw those diagrams—or at least some of them. They are all drawing their own conclusions and the rumors are spreading like wildfire. The secret isn't going to keep much longer and if I don't give them something this could spiral completely out of control!"

Max nodded in reluctant agreement. There had been over a hundred diagrams carved into the wall of the… the… Max still didn't know what to call the structure. They told a story that was both inspiring and terrifying. He had no idea how the Na'vi were going to react to it. But Rhada was right: better to announce something than let rumor run riot. He pulled up a chair. "All right, show me what you've got."

[Scene Break]

Silwanin slid off her horse and then waited while Father, Mother and Grace did likewise. She was nearly bouncing with excitement. Today they would find out what this great, mysterious structure was all about! Rhada and Maxpatel were going to tell them all about what they had found. It had been almost sixteen days since she had discovered the body inside and those mysterious carvings. She'd puzzled over them herself, but she wasn't sure what they had meant. Rhada and her brother had used the human _computers_ to make them give up their secrets.

Of course, she hadn't spent all this time just waiting. She and the others had explored the inside from top to bottom. Well, almost to the top, the space above the level with the body had collapsed completely and they couldn't get in there. But there had been three levels below the entry level and they had all been very large. Mostly empty, but still interesting. They had found the bones of a number of animals—some unlike anything she had ever seen before—and the dried remains of plants. There had been huge storage vats and several deep wells . It was impressive, baffling and kind of scary. But today the mysteries would be solved—she hoped.

"Are you all right, Grace?" asked Mother as they walked toward the camp that had grown up around the entrance. Silwanin looked back and saw that the woman was rubbing the side of her head. She smiled faintly.

"Just a headache," she said. "Come on let's hear what Rhada has to say."

A large tent had been erected and the presentation would be inside so that Rhada could use the marvelous human image projectors. Rhada and her brother and all the avatars from Heaven's Gate were already there. They all welcomed each other, but to Silwanin's satisfaction no time was wasted on meaningless pleasantries. Rhada activated the projector and began at once. Silwanin thought she looked very tired and even a bit nervous.

"I want to thank all of you for your help and hard work in this undertaking," she said. "I also want to thank you for your patience while the data was analyzed. My training is as a geologist and when I started this I never expected where it was going to take me. It has taken me to places both amazing and wondrous. Our conclusions, although still preliminary, have revealed a past epoch of Pandora that was unknown and both glorious and tragic. We've managed to clean up and enhance the images in the carvings, so these pictures will probably appear new to all of you even though you've seen them before.

"From the start we all speculated on the purpose of the great structure discovered here. Many guesses were put forth but I have to tell you that all of our guesses were wrong. It was not a crypt, it was not a temple and it was not a fortress." She paused and took a breath.

"It was an ark."

Silwanin wasn't exactly sure of the meaning of the word, but there was a surprised murmur among the others. Rhada continued:

"It was a refuge, a shelter from a terrible catastrophe that struck Pandora 50,000 years ago. I'm sure most of you noticed that a few dozen of the wall-carvings appeared to be astronomical charts and yes, that is exactly what they are. And they are not just whimsical approximations; computer analysis has confirmed that these are accurate and detailed descriptions of Polyphemus and its family of moons. The Builders were skilled and accomplished astronomers, at about the same level as humans were in the 17th or 18th centuries."

"That's not surprising, really, "said UncleNorm. "The Na'vi would have had a huge advantage over early human astronomers. With Polyphemus and the other moons right there in front of them they could easily see that Pandora orbited around the larger planet. They wouldn't have wasted centuries on any geocentric nonsense the way we did."

"Yes," said Rhada, nodding, "they were accurately able to chart the movements of the other moons and even calculate orbits—which was very lucky for them." She clicked on the display and began to show detailed images of the wall carvings. "As you can see here, their astronomers noted the approach of a large asteroid. We are guessing that it was about a hundred kilometers in diameter. Fortunately it did not strike Pandora or that would have been the end of everything. But it passed very close to Polyphemus and the gravitational forces tore the asteroid into a cloud of smaller fragments and swung them into a highly eccentric orbit around the gas giant. Every few years the fragments would sweep back through the orbits of the moons. On one of those passes a large chunk hit Jocasta, the fourth moon. The resulting explosion devastated it and left a crater you can still see with the naked eye. The Na'vi saw this and realized what a threat the other fragments posed. They made a careful study of the paths of the remaining fragments and came to the conclusion that in a few years Pandora would be struck as well."

Rhada paused and bowed her head slightly. "Deep radar probes from orbit have found a large crater under the ocean about eight thousand kilometers from here. Samples I've taken from the former mine excavation show a layer of dust consistent with an asteroid impact placed just about 50,000 years ago. There can be no doubt that Pandora was struck—and devastated—just as the Na'vi predicted."

"And they built this place as a shelter?" asked Jake.

"Yes," said Rhada. "That is the second half of this story. The man who left the record—I've come to call him 'Carver'—didn't just want to tell us what happened, he wanted to tell who his people had been. It was a remarkable effort and that we've been able to decipher it shows that he had a brilliant and logical mind. Or perhaps I should say _They_ had a brilliant mind. Please take a look at the very first drawing." The image changed and showed a simple, but detailed drawing. Small figures that must have represented people were arrayed at the bottom. Near them were many different types of animals. Above them were ikrans and other flying beasts. To one side there were some wavy lines that must have meant water and beneath the lines fish and other creatures Silwanin could not recognize. But over all there was a large orb that looked very much like an eye. An outline in the shape of a tree surrounded it. Thin lines radiated out from the eye to connect with each and every person and animal.

"Eywa!' she gasped.

"Yes," said Rhada. "That surely depicts Eywa. An overseeing presence connected with every living thing on the planet. Now, look at these next drawings." A new image replaced the former one. It showed a number of large trees with people in them. It was stylized, but Silwanin could clearly recognize what they were: hometrees. But there were objects in the trees and more of them surrounding the trees. They looked a little like the structures the humans at Heaven's Gate lived in…

"A city?" asked Father.

"Yes, it certainly looks that way," replied Rhada. "Look at these others." More images followed and they showed a number of variations on the same theme: hometrees and buildings together with people all around. "Note what appears to be cultivated land in the clear areas. And always Eywa overhead."

"Is it just one city or several?" asked UncleNorm.

"Several. Look at these other ones." The next image showed two of the cities, carved much smaller and at the edges of the image. Ikrans with riders seemed to be flying between them and on the ground there were strings of horses with bundles on their backs being led by people.

"Cities trading with each other!" exclaimed one of the other avatars. The next image was like the last one but this time the two cities were separated by the wavy lines that represented water. Strange objects sat on top. "Boats! They could travel across the seas!"

"It would appear that this was a planet-wide civilization," said Rhada. "Not just a single city-state. We can't really estimate numbers from these images, but we can assume a much larger population than exists today. Now take a close look at this next one, this is the carving that comes just before the astronomical diagrams." The image shifted again and Silwanin blinked. It was unlike the earlier images in that there was a person seen close up. In all the other carvings the people had been so tiny that few details could be seen. But this one had a large figure, a male, wearing strange robes. He was standing on top of a platform or perhaps a building and he was looking up at the sky with a strange framework of sticks just in front of him. In the sky was a large arc which she supposed was the Sky Father, Polyphemus the Sky People called it.

"Is that a telescope?" asked one person.

"No, looks more like a cross-staff, which was just a collection of rods with marks on them to plot the position of objects in the sky," said Maxpatel.

"And there's the approaching asteroid," said Ivan pointing to the upper-right part of the image.

"Yes," said Rhada. "And note that here again is Eywa. But look at the lines radiating from the symbol: one to the astronomer and one to the asteroid."

"Eywa knew!" cried Jake. "She knew what was coming!"

"It certainly appears that way." Rhada paused for a moment as if gathering herself. "I'm going to do something that any scientist hates: I'm going to speculate with very little supporting evidence. Based on the diagrams I've shown you and the ones that follow, I believe that this earlier civilization had a much closer relationship with Eywa than the Na'vi do now."

"What do you mean?" demanded Mother with an indignant tone in her voice.

"I'm sorry, Neytiri, I mean no disrespect to you or the People," said Rhada. "But what I mean is that for these people Eywa was an active partner in their civilization."

"We give praise to Eywa every day!"

Rhada sighed. "I'm not expressing myself very well. Yes, Eywa is always a part of your life, but you do not link to the Tree of Souls or the Trees of Voices every day, do you? You don't consult Eywa before making every decision."

"No, that is true," Mother said grudgingly.

"Well, I believe that these earlier people did. Perhaps not physically linking their queues, but I believe Eywa was far, far more involved in the day-to-day activities of the people than She is now. But let me show you why I think this. The next images in the series are the astronomical diagrams we've already seen so I'll skip them, but following them, watch." Rhada touched the controls of the projector and new images appeared. It was similar to an earlier one that had shown two of the cities, except this time it showed many small cities. In the sky was the symbol for Ewya and also the small shape that depicted the sky rock, the _asteroid_ that threatened the world. Lines connected the cities and the rock to Eywa.

"Eywa is giving the alarm!" said UncleNorm. "Spreading the news!"

"Yes," said Rhada, "now pay special attention to this next one." The new image showed another city but in the center of the city was the symbol for Eywa: the eye and the tree. Except… "The tree is not just a symbol in the sky as in the other diagrams, here it is depicted as an actual tree, on the ground."

"The Tree of Souls!" gasped Mother.

"Yes. The Tree of Souls. Right… _here_."

"You're suggesting that the tree that's sitting just over the hill existed 50,000 years ago?" demanded UncleNorm.

"Far longer than that, apparently," said Rhada, nodding. "Why not?"

"Well because… well… uh… okay, why not?" said UncleNorm throwing up his hands.

"Indeed," said Rhada. "And if you need any further confirmation, notice that there are the floating mountains shown in the sky over the city. Clearly, this image is denoting a city that once stood where we are now. All right, I'm going to move through these next images rather rapidly. They will be self explanatory, I think." The next picture was much like the previous one except a crowd of tiny people was shown all around the Tree of Souls. And in the next one they were… what?

_They are building this place!_

Picture by picture the diagrams showed the people digging and building the great shelter. Tunneling under the hill that the tree stood on and building up walls and platforms around it. Step-by-step the place Silwanin had explored took shape. Then the pictures paused and Rhada said: "Now we get to the part of the story that originally set me to work on this." More pictures showed a series of great arches rising up to enclose the Tree of Souls. But not just arches…

"Domes!" cried Father. "They built domes to protect the tree!"

"Yes, a work of engineering that even today we would find daunting, something far beyond anything ever attempted by our Earthly ancestors." The look on Rhada's face was one of awe. Silwanin, though scarcely understanding all that had been said so far, found herself swelling with pride at the accomplishment of these distant ancestors. _They gave everything to protect Eywa! Just as the tsahiks do today…_ The true meaning of her future role came through to her as it never had before.

"Notice, too," continued Rhada, "how they make use of the floating mountains themselves." The image got larger to show some of the details. "Not only do they lower ropes from above to help with the work—the legendary 'sky hooks' made real—but much of the sheathing of the domes is material so rich in unobtainium that they actually have to be held _down_ to keep them from floating away. You'll see why they did that shortly."

"But… but…" stammered one of the other avatars, "why make it so _big_? It's vastly larger than the tree! They could have just extended the step-pyramid a few more levels to put a roof over the tree, couldn't they?"

"Yes," said Rhada, "but they weren't just working to protect the tree. The project was far, far more ambitious than that. Look." A new image appeared and it showed… what? Animals. Animals of every kind walking and flying into the dome, into the underground spaces…

"'And the animals came into the ark two-by-two'…" whispered UncleNorm. "Good God, it really was an ark!"

"Yes. It was an attempt to preserve not just the Tree of Souls, but all the types of life of Pandora. Those huge storage pits we discovered weren't just to hold food for the Na'vi. The domes were filled with plants and animals. Presumably, Eywa could make them all behave themselves." Rhada paused again and gave a long sigh. "There is one diagram missing from this story. Clearly, only a tiny fraction of the Na'vi population could be sheltered here. We can speculate that other, smaller shelters might have been built in other cities, but even so, the vast majority of the people would have had to remain outside. We have no idea how those who went into the shelters were chosen. We can speculate that Eywa had a say in it, but we do not know and nothing here sheds any light on it." Rhada shook her head.

"Speaking of light," said one of the others, "what about light? How did they keep all the plants alive under the domes?"

"You saw the lanterns we found," said Rhada. "We are theorizing that they made use of similar ones to light the domes. Some of the storage vats had traces of plant nectar. If they could have used that to feed luminous insects they might have provided enough light to keep the plants alive."

"It's all a matter of energy," nodded UncleNorm. "If they could store enough energy in the form of food, they could have maintained a viable eco-system—at least for a while."

"There are only a few more diagrams to show you," continued Rhada. "The next couple, I'll admit, don't seem to make much sense. I'm assuming they depict the impact of the asteroid and the immediate aftermath." She touched the controls again, but as she'd warned the next images were just a jumble of lines and specks. Faintly, the outline of the domes could be seen near the bottom, but that was all.

"The impact, even striking the ocean, would have thrown up an enormous cloud of dust," said Maxpatel, quietly. "It would have blanketed the whole planet and blotted out all sunlight for months. Temperatures would have fallen and Pandora would have experienced its first winter. Plant and animal life would have mostly perished. We can only guess at how long it would have been before the dust settled and temperatures returned to normal. Probably several years." Silwanin tried to imagine such a thing, but it was hard. During her times at Heaven's Gate she'd seen and touched the stuff the humans called _ice_. Water so cold that it was hard as rock. They had shown her pictures of their world with places covered by the stuff. But to think of her own world covered with it, all the trees and plants, all the animals dying… she couldn't grasp it.

"There's only one picture showing the long wait for the skies to clear," said Rhada. She showed it now and it was a drawing of the shelter with tiny people and animals inside. "But look here." The picture zoomed in on one very small part and it showed…

"Carver!" exclaimed Father. Yes, it was true, a tiny figure appeared to be hammering at the wall.

"Yes, a self-portrait of sorts. During the construction there was no time to add any decorations. Only what was needed to meet the crisis was included. But during the wait, at least one person had the time to think about leaving this record. Whether this had been planned or it was something he thought up on his own—or it was something that Eywa wanted—we'll probably never know. But we're all in his debt. He must have spent nearly all his time working on this.

"Now we come to the second-to-last picture," said Rhada. "The skies have cleared and the shelter is open and the people and animals are moving out. The genius of the planners can be seen here: the domes, which might have been a danger to the tree and the other occupants if they had collapsed on them, can be seen actually floating away, pulled up by the strong magnetic field, just as the floating mountains are. They knew that there would be only a few of them left after the catastrophe and they designed it so that just a few could dismantle the critical sections. What's left today are mostly just the parts they didn't think necessary to remove."

"Incredible," hissed UncleNorm. Most of the others were shaking their heads in admiration.

"The last picture," said Rhada. "The last picture I debated with myself whether I should show that to you. Some of you have seen it on the wall, but without computer enhancement I doubt you really saw what it was showing. And before I show it to you I'm going to apologize to Neytiri and Silwanin. This is not going to be easy for you, but I think you have to know." Silwanin tensed. What could it be? So far this story, while sad, had also been very inspirational. The last picture was displayed and she looked hard at it. The image showed people and animals streaming away over hills and valleys. But… but the animals were attacking each other. And the people, some had their arms up over their heads while they were running. The images were too small to see facial details, but something was… something was wrong.

"I… I don't understand," said Mother. Silwanin didn't understand either.

"Notice the symbol for Eywa in the sky," said Rhada with a grim expression on her face.

"It's so small!" said Silwanin. Indeed, it was tiny compared to the earlier images, almost too small to see.

"And there are no lines drawn from the symbol to the people or the animals," said Rhada.

"What does this mean?" demanded Mother.

Rhada actually seemed to be shaking slightly and her eyes glistened with tears. "Right from the start we wondered how there could be no record of this place. That you had never heard of it. Mo'at had no knowledge of it from her shared memories from past tsahiks. Eywa had never told you of it when you linked to the Tree of Souls or the Trees of Voices. How could that be? A few years back, while we were negotiating the treaty, Ivan and I were allowed to witness a Tireafya'o, The Path of the Spirit, at the Tree of Souls. Max tried to explain Grace's theory about the vast planetary network that made up Eywa. How it consisted of all the trees connected to each other. Ivan asked the question of what would happen if a lot of the trees were destroyed? At the time we were just worried about future problems with the Sky People, but Max, do you remember what you told us?"

Maxpatel seemed startled. "Why I said… I said it would be the equivalent of a human having a massive stroke…" his face turned pale and he looked stricken.

Rhada nodded. "And that's exactly what happened to Eywa. And I believe that the network that existed prior to the catastrophe was far, far more extensive than what we see today. It extended to every plant, every animal, and to all the Na'vi. It was a storehouse of information, data, memories, and _wisdom_ that the Na'vi depended on the way humans depend on computer networks today. She was their guide and counselor, truly the All Mother of Pandora. Somehow she managed to hold herself together long enough to get through that terrible winter, to keep order in the shelter, but once that task was done the network collapsed. Too many of the connections, too much of the network had been destroyed."

"Are you saying… are you saying that Eywa _died_?" exclaimed Mother. Silwanin swallowed down panic. The very thought was terrifying.

"I think… I think that she died in childbirth," stammered Rhada and now tears did start down her cheeks. "She died giving life to her daughter, to a new Eywa. Your Eywa."

"Can this truly be?" gasped Mother, her hands to her face. Silwanin pressed herself against her mother and clutched her arm, more frightened than she'd ever been in her life.

"I believe that this is the truth," said Rhada. "You can understand why I hesitated so long to tell you. When the Na'vi find this out…

"Rhada!' said Max suddenly. "You have a much bigger problem than that!"

"What? What do you mean?"

"The question isn't do you tell the Na'vi! The question is: _Do you tell Eywa?"_

Rhada's mouth fell open and utter silence filled the tent. Silwanin was so stunned she could hardly draw a breath.

_Silence…_

Despite her shock, Silwanin suddenly became aware that it _was_ silent. Completely silent. But the forest was _never_ silent. The multitude of animals and insects created a never-ending background of noise.

But not now. She could hear her heartbeat, her breath, but nothing else.

The others began to notice it, too and looked around uneasily. The tension that filled the tent was like the instant of time between the flash of a very close lightning bolt and the deafening roar of the thunderclap.

Suddenly the silence ended. It seemed like every animal and insect was making as much noise as it could. Howls, roars, shrieks filled the air. They all rushed out of the tent only to see their horses galloping wildly off into the forest. Swarms of insects and small flying animals darted in every direction. They all stood and stared at the chaos. Graceaugustine came up behind them, holding her head.

"Max… Max, I think She figured it out on her own."

To Be Continued


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Rhada stared in shock at the mayhem erupting around her. All the creatures of the forest seemed to be in a panic, running or flying wildly, without direction or purpose. _This is my fault…_ _If I'd just left it alone…_

"Everyone get inside the shelter!" shouted Jake suddenly. "Move!" Ivan grabbed her arm, rousing her from her shocked stupor and they ran to the entrance. She looked behind her for Max, but he had already beaten them inside. They huddled near the door, no one knowing what to do.

"What's happening?" asked several people at once.

"I think Eywa's having a nervous breakdown," said Ivan. Several people snorted as if they thought the joke was in bad taste, but Rhada knew it was no joke. _And it might very well be true!_

"Why the hasty retreat, Jake?" asked Norm. "You think the animals will really attack us?"

"I don't know, but I don't think we should be standing outside waiting to find out." Jake took an inventory of weapons and found that they had a couple of assault rifles, three bows and everyone had a knife.

"Do you think I should contact Heaven's Gate and have them send some choppers to evacuate us, Jake?" asked Max.

"Give them a call," said Jake, "but hold off on asking for an evac until we see what the situation is."

Max nodded and called the base, but very quickly they learned that the disruption with the animals was happening over a wide area. "Radar is picking up large numbers of flying animals, banshees probably, moving in random patterns over the forest," reported Max's wife, Cynthia. "A little while ago a sturmbeest came out of the forest and butted the perimeter fence and then ran off again. Max, what's going on?"

"We're not sure, Love. But you better get everyone inside and batten down the hatches," replied Max.

"But what are _you_ going to do?"

"We're okay for now. Hopefully, this will settle down after a while. I'll call you back in a bit." Max looked at Jake and shrugged.

"Okay, so much for the choppers. No way we can risk them under these circumstances," said Jake. He peered out the entrance for a moment. "It looks calmer at the moment. Let's grab what supplies we can from camp and get them in here—just in case." He led the way back out into the open. Rhada peered around anxiously, but there didn't appear to be any immediate threat. They quickly returned to their tents and began scooping up food, water and any other items they didn't think they could get along without. They carried them inside and piled them in the corridor and then went back for more.

Rhada was debating whether the computers were more important than another case of water when a loud bellow rang through the campground. She looked outside the tent in time to see a hammerhead charging out of the trees.

"Run!" shouted Jake. "Go! Go! Go!"

A few frantic seconds later Rhada was back in the shelter without computers or water. She looked back with wide eyes as the enormous beast smashed right through the main tent and trampled a number of the smaller ones. It came back twice more before thundering away into the forest.

"Everyone here?" asked Jake. A quick head-count confirmed that no one had been left behind.

"But why?" demanded Silwanin. "Why would Eywa attack us?" The girl was close to tears.

"It's not deliberate," said Grace. The woman was sitting on the stone floor and leaning against the wall with her eyes closed.

"Grace, are you all right?" said Jake.

" No. My head feels like it's going to explode."

"Where's the medikit?" he demanded, but Grace just waved it away.

"Believe me, I've tried every painkiller in the inventory," she said. "They won't help this."

"What is going on, Grace?" said Jake. "And don't tell me you don't know! You know _something_, now give!"

Grace nodded slightly and winced even from that tiny movement. "It's been building for over a week. I could give you a lot of theories, but I'll get right to the bottom line: Eywa is in pain and I'm catching the overflow—just like all the animals out there. She's in pain, confused, and afraid."

"Afraid?" cried Neytiri, looking surprised and a bit insulted.

"Yes, afraid. Don't try and tell me you haven't felt it, too, Neytiri. You're not the tsahik yet, but you've got the sensitivity."

"I've felt… something," admitted the Na'vi woman.

"And the animals are feeling it a lot more strongly. So am I, probably because of… because of what I've been through. At least I have some clue as to why. The animals don't. They're just reacting like any animal filled with pain and fear. They're not coming after us specifically."

"But why is this happening? And why now? Are you saying she was listening in on Rhada's talk?"

"I… I think the timing may just be a coincidence. As I said: this had been building for a few weeks. You need to understand what Eywa is—and what she isn't. She isn't a goddess, at least not the way humans think of a goddess. There's nothing supernatural about her. She's a phenomenon—an amazing phenomenon to be sure—of the Pandoran ecology. She didn't make the world, the world made her. As we've discovered, all the life on Pandora is linked with each other to some degree. Either directly through the tsahaylu, or remotely. I'm not sure how the remote link is achieved, but I imagine it's similar to how an avatar-driver connects with his avatar. Probably on some wavelength in the EM spectrum we just haven't noticed." Grace paused and massaged her temples. There was a strong green tinge to her blue complexion.

"All these connections have created a vast network. But a really slow network. Max, you're our computer guru, what's the main factor restricting the speed of a computer's CPU?"

"Uh, the most critical one is the physical distance between circuits," replied Max. "The speed of light is constant, so the closer you can place the circuits the faster it will work. They've tried a number of ways to reduce the distance but…"

"Thank you," said Grace interrupting. "So if you had a computer where the distance between circuits was measured in meters or kilometers instead of angstroms , what would the speed be like?"

"Really slow, just like you said."

"Yes. Eywa has vast resources, but she's slow. My time with her didn't seem like nearly twenty years, so perhaps time passes more slowly in the Eye. Jake, I've heard you wondering about why Eywa didn't intervene in the big battle until after so many of the Na'vi had been killed. She probably made what was for her a lightning decision to help—it just took a while to pass along the orders." Jake frowned but nodded. "And she's probably been absorbing all this new information about the past civilization for quite a while. It has just now sunk in."

"How long do you think this will go on?" asked Jake.

Grace shrugged. "How the hell should I know?"

"But what's _wrong_ with her?" demanded Ivan. "Is she acting like someone who's just discovered they were adopted or something?"

"It's a lot more than that," replied Grace. "Ever read 'Flowers for Algernon'?"

"Uh, no… I must have skipped school that day."

"It's a work of fiction about a human who is mentally retarded, a clinical moron. He's given an experimental treatment that turns him into a towering genius. But it doesn't last. Step-by-step he slowly returns to being a moron. It's pretty damn traumatic for him. Sad story."

"And you think Eywa is reacting like that?"

"Yes. Rhada, I think your theory about Eywa dying and being reborn is wrong. I think this is the same Eywa who's always been here. But the crisis with the asteroid lobotomized her, destroyed most of her stored knowledge and badly degraded her CPU. Year by year she's been slowly rebuilding herself as life spreads and she accumulates knowledge, but she's still got a long way to go to get back to where she was before. But I also think that she did hang onto some small memories of what she was before. They were forgotten or just mislaid, but they were there. She's found them again and it's terrifying her. Keep in mind that her knowledge is limited to what comes in from the world around her. She's the sum of her parts. Present day Na'vi know little about astronomy or mathematics and nothing about the effects of an asteroid impact. Eywa can't really understand what's happened to her. When you started to make these discoveries I was afraid that something like this might happen. Some of you noticed I wasn't being much help with the exploration of the shelter or analyzing the data. I was trying not to even _think_ about what was going on. I was hoping Eywa might not notice or might not recognize the significance. But obviously it didn't work. She's frightened and confused. How long it will take for her to recover—or if she'll recover at all—I just don't know."

"'If'? What do you mean if?"

Grace just shrugged and closed her eyes.

"This is all my fault," said Rhada. She looked at Neytiri and Silwanin. "I am so sorry! I should have never started this!"

"There's no way you could have known," said Jake. "And we gave you permission to dig. We're all just as much to blame."

"But what are we going to do?"

"There's nothing we can do but wait," said Jake. He turned away from Grace and directed that some of the piles of cut stone be used to build a barricade at the entrance. A hammerhead or a sturmbeast couldn't fit inside anyway, but a Thanator or viperwolves could. They left an opening large enough for a human or Na'vi to squeeze through, but anything bigger would have a tough time. After that they just sat around or organized the supplies. Jake had two people keep watch on the other side of the barricade in shifts. From time to time they'd hear animal cries that came close, but nothing actually attacked.

Toward evening one of the sentries suddenly shouted. "Hey! Someone's coming! People, I mean!" Everyone crowded through the opening in the barricade and peered out into the darkening forest.

"A rescue party from Hometree do you think?" asked Norm.

"Without horses or ikrans there's no way they could get here so soon," replied Jake. Suddenly he stiffened. "Look! It's Harri Kim! Harri! Over here!" he stepped forward and waved.

As Rhada stared, a human figure emerged from the trees and started forward, moving cautiously from cover to cover as she came closer. Rhada hadn't seen much of Harriet Kim, former captain of RDA security forces, but she was a legend around Heaven's Gate. Inadvertently left behind over twenty years ago during an abortive attempt by the RDA to reestablish a mine on Pandora, Kim had thrown in her lot with the Na'vi and human expatriates. Since then she had spent as much time seeing as much of Pandora as she possibly could. Any time there was an expedition sent out to some new region, Kim went along to handle security. The last Rhada had heard, Harri had gone with Mo'at to visit the Lutapawni clan.

Harri approached to a hundred meters away and then sprinted the rest of the way to the entrance. "Jake!" she exclaimed. "Boy am I glad to see you! What the hell is going on?" Rhada stared at the woman: She was wearing nothing at all except a pair of shorts, an equipment belt, a knapsack and her exo-pack. Well, she had some Na'vi jewelry that protected a bit of her modesty, but not much. She didn't even have boots. Her pale blond hair was pulled back in a braided ponytail that hung to her waist. She had a pistol in a holster on her belt, but her only other weapon was a miniature Na'vi-style bow.

"Where's Mo'at?" asked Jake. Neytiri and Silwanin were crowding forward, demanding to know as well.

"She's back in the woods a few hundred meters," said Harri. "We were heading back to Hometree but a couple of days ago Mo'at suddenly said we needed to come here. Then a few hours ago the horses went crazy—along with all the other animals!—and we had to let them go. Mo'at had been feeling poorly for the last few days but after that she collapsed. I don't think she hit her head or anything when the horses threw us, but she's in a lot of pain. I wanted to call the base for evac, but she insisted I bring her here. Said it was important. We made a litter for her and the rest of the party is carrying her. We've been attacked a couple of times getting here, but not by anything big enough to do much harm. I came ahead to scout and saw what's left of your camp. Everyone okay here?"

"Yeah, no casualties so far. But let's get the rest of your party in here."

"Okay, just set yourselves to give us some cover if we need it. I'll bring them in." A moment later she was gone, moving silently down the hill. Jake put those with weapons in position as Kim had asked. A few minutes later Kim reemerged leading a small band of Na'vi. They were carrying Mo'at on a crude stretcher but they came quickly up the hill and were brought inside, Mo'at being awkwardly passed through the opening in the barricade. Neytiri was at her side.

"Daughter, what have you done?" asked the tsahik weakly.

"It is a long story, Mother. But I will try to explain." She knelt down next to Mo'at and spoke quietly with her. Rhada wasn't sure if she should join in or just get lost. She felt so damn helpless!

"Oh," said Kim suddenly. "Silwanin, there's someone here you ought to meet." Kim spoke nearly perfect Na'vi and she beckoned the girl over, who came reluctantly, looking back at her grandmother. Kim then pulled forward a young Na'vi male who had been with her party. "Silwanin? I want you to meet Pallar of the Lutapawni."

[Scene Break]

Silwanin stared in surprise at the boy who might someday become her mate. She'd known that Grandmother might bring him back with her if she felt it could be a good match, but somehow she never actually imagined it happening! Pallar was a fine-looking young man, not quite grown to his full height, but she could see he'd be quite tall. His eyes were sharp and inquisitive. They were staring right at her. Remembering her manners she touched her forehead and said: "I see you, Pallar of the Lutapawni."

He replied in kind: "I see you, Silwanin of the Omaticaya." He looked a little nervous—just the way she felt.

"Please forgive this poor welcome. We have a… situation."

"So it would seem! Do you know what is happening? What is this place?" he waved at the rock walls and ceiling.

"I can try to explain. Come, let's find a spot to ourselves." She led him deeper into the shelter and he marveled at the Sky People lights that were spaced along the corridor. She had only intended that they get far enough from the others so that they could speak privately, but she ended up giving Pallar a tour of the whole immense structure. She tried to describe it as Rhada had done, but she feared her words were hopelessly muddled. Pallar asked endless questions and she could only answer a small number of them. They ended up standing before the wall with all the carvings.

"So you are telling me that once, long, long ago, that the People, with Eywa's aid, had achieved a… a… greatness that we never suspected?" asked Pallar. "That they—and Eywa—were laid low by a disaster from the sky? Do I understand you correctly, Silwanin?"

"As well as I understand it myself," she said. "Which isn't very well, I'm afraid."

"And that Eywa has been… hurt by the discovery of all this?"

"So it seems. It is a great shock, apparently."

Pallar shook his head. "I always thought that Eywa knew everything. To learn that She doesn't is just… just…"

"I know what you mean," she said, nodding. "It… it… makes me feel like…" she paused as a thought struck her. "It makes me feel confused and afraid—just the way Eywa is probably feeling! It's like stepping onto a branch that has always been there but now it's gone. Suddenly you are falling with no warning at all."

"What is going to happen?"

"I don't know. And I don't think the elders know either."

"That… that's almost as great a shock as Eywa not knowing," said Pallar with a tiny smile.

"Yes," said Silwanin with a snort of laughter. "Another branch missing! But come, you must be hungry and thirsty after such a journey. At least we have food and water here." They went back to where the others were. Mother was still tending to Grandmother, who seemed to be recovering somewhat. She was talking with Graceaugustine, but too quietly to overhear. Silwanin found enough for their meals and then squatted down with Pallar off to the side.

"It is far to your Hometree," said Silwanin as they ate. "How was your journey?"

"Uneventful—until today! Well, that isn't true, either, we sighted the Thundering Rocks a few days earlier and that was certainly special! My mother had described them to me a hundred times, but no words are enough! I think I'd still be standing there with my mouth open if your grandmother hadn't dragged me along!"

"I've lived near them my whole life, but you can never take them for granted."

"They have not done any thundering so far."

"No, it takes a very powerful wind or a storm to make them crash together. But when they do all must flee from underneath! Sometimes huge pieces break off and will come crashing down—although just as often, the piece will float away instead. I've only seen that happen once."

"Do you… do you ever see Toruk?" Silwanin noticed that Pallar's eyes were on her father and she smiled. She had to remind herself that while he might be _Father_ to her, he was _Toruk Macto_ to almost everyone else. A legend.

"I see him from time to time—but only from a distance! He cannot be approached carelessly! He is not like an ikran: when my father's task was done, he released Toruk back to the wild, and wild he remains." Pallar nodded and they ate silently for a while and then Silwanin said: "I… I hope that Grandmother didn't put too much pressure on you to come here. Duty is everything to her and sometimes she doesn't think as much about what other people want as she should."

Pallar seemed embarrassed. "I wanted to come. It is a great honor to be chosen as another clan's future Olo'eyktan—not that I've been chosen yet, of course! But to even be considered is an honor. And my mother had so much to say about the Omaticaya and the Tree of Souls and the Thundering Rocks and Toruk Macto and your mother—they met during the war, you know."

"Yes."

"Well, it sounded like it would be a great adventure."

Silwanin looked around and cocked her head. "Be careful when you wish for an adventure—you might just get one."

Pallar laughed. "My mother said almost exactly the same thing!" Pallar's smile faltered and he looked almost shy. "But no one said anything about you being so beautiful."

Now it was Silwanin's turn to be embarrassed. "I… I'm glad that you are pleased. I think that we could become friends, Pallar of the Lutapawni." She reached over and briefly squeezed his hand. "Assuming we make it through this adventure."

He smiled at her. "I'm sure we will."

After the meal, all the Dreamwalkers went to sleep so that their human selves at Heaven's Gate could also rest and eat. Silwanin had to work hard to explain to Pallar what _that_ was all about! Father set up a rotating watch at the barricade for the night with the people who were left. He scarcely even hesitated when Silwanin asked to be paired with Pallar for their turn. She had never quite been able to discover how Father really felt about this arrangement for finding her a mate...

When it was time for their watch, they climbed over the barricade and sat near the entrance to the shelter, looking out into the cool night. The animals were still stirred up and the usual nightly noises were a confused mix of sounds. Even the normal glow of the plants was disturbed with strange waves of color rippling along the branches and leaves. "Eywa is still in pain," said Pallar, shaking his head sadly. "Your grandmother and that other woman, Graceaugustine, they can both feel it as well? You will be tsahik someday, can you feel it, too?"

"I have not yet walked the Path of the Spirit as a tsahik must, so my connection to Eywa is not as strong. I can feel… something. But I'm not sure if I'm really feeling Eywa's pain or if it's just my own fear combined with my imagination."

"Are you afraid?"

"Yes." She looked straight at him.

"It takes courage to admit when you are afraid," he said. "Many people won't." They both stiffened when the roar of a talioang came from close by. After a few moments they heard it moving away and relaxed slightly. "I think…" continued Pallar, "I think I would be very much more afraid than I am if you and the others were not with me. It is a great comfort."

"Yes."

"It is a shame that we cannot comfort Eywa as we do each other."

Silwanin twitched. _Mother and Grandmother have told me every day that my duty is to Eywa. Before anything else! We always look to Eywa for help, but now it is Eywa who needs help!_ She stood up and grasped Pallar's hand.

"Perhaps we can. Come with me!"

To Be Continued


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Rhada cursed when the communicator by her bed started beeping. She cursed again when she saw what time it was. She'd only been asleep for an hour! She rolled over and slapped the device. "What?" she groaned.

"Rhada! It's Cynthia. I've got Max on the line he needs to talk to you right away."

She jerked upright, sleep banished from her mind. "Put him through!"

"Rhada?" came her brother's voice. "Can you link up right away? All of you? We got trouble."

"What's wrong? Are the animals attacking?" She was already grabbing her nightgown and shaking Ivan.

"No, it's not that—at least not yet. No, it's Silwanin. She went off and linked herself to the Tree of Souls! She's in some sort of trance or coma."

"Damn! Can't you break the link?"

"No! The others say that normally it just takes a firm pull and the tendrils in the queue release, but hers won't let go! She went off with her new boyfriend without telling anyone. He came back in a panic to get the rest of us. We're all here by the tree now, but we're feeling mighty exposed. Jake wants the other avatars to give us some extra muscle in case we need it."

"Okay! We'll be right there! Ivan! Wake up!"

Ten minutes later, still in her nightgown, Rhada lay down in the link capsule and watched it close over her. A few moments later she was in her avatar, back in the cursed ruin that had started this nightmare. Max was there waiting for them along with Harri Kim. As soon as the other avatars came awake they all went out into the night.

They quickly but cautiously made their way up the hill that covered the shelter to the top and then back down into the well that held the Tree of Souls. Rhada gasped when she saw it. Normally the Tree glowed a pale blue color, but this night it was an angry red, pulsing erratically. The others were clustered near its base. They hurried down to them.

Silwanin was lying on her back on the ground. Her long queue was connected to one of the glowing branches of the tree. Strobes of light ran up and down the branch and the girl was twitching and quivering in time with them. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her face twisted in a grimace. Jake and Neytiri and Mo'at and Pallar were kneeling next to her. Grace was sitting to one side. "Oh God, no…" hissed Rhada. "How long?"

"Half an hour, forty minutes, maybe," said Jake grimly.

"And you can't get her loose?"

"Not without risking injury to her queue." Which no Na'vi would ever do, Rhada knew. It would be like a human poking out his own eyes.

"What about cutting off the end of the branch?" suggested Ivan.

"We don't know what that might do to her—or Eywa," said Max. "It would have to be an absolute last resort."

"I am so sorry!" moaned Pallar. "I should have tried to stop her!" The boy looked devastated.

"She's her mother's daughter," said Jake. "Once she's made up her mind to do something the only way you could have stopped her would be to knock her out and tie her up." He looked pointedly at Neytiri and Rhada realized she had arrived in the middle of some argument.

"I am going to bring her back," said Neytiri, returning her mate's stare.

"Now wait a minute…" said Rhada.

"_We_ shall bring her back," said Mo'at. "Together."

"Do you really think that's a good idea?" asked Rhada. "One falls in so two more jump in after her? We need to stop and think about this!"

"My granddaughter was impetuous, but her vision was clear," declared the tsahik. "She did this to help Eywa and so we must! It is our duty! We will calm Eywa and bring back Silwanin." Mo'at nodded at Neytiri and they lay down on either side of Silwanin, each taking one of her hands in one of theirs.

"Jake," hissed Rhada, "are you going to let them do this?"

"No stopping them," he said, never taking his eyes off the women. "Believe me, there's no stopping them. And maybe it will work."

She looked desperately to Grace, but she was just slowly rocking back and forth, eyes shut, her hands curled into fists pressed against her temples.

Rhada watched helplessly as Mo'at and Neytiri lifted up their queues to the hanging branches. The tendrils instantly wrapped themselves around the branches, which glowed even brighter-_red_. Neytiri gasped and her eyes rolled back in her head and she crumpled backwards, flat on the ground. Mo'at did the same. Both began to twitch in rhythm with the light, just as Silwanin was.

"Let's not panic," said Max, looking very close to panic. "Remember what we were saying about Eywa's processor speed. It could take hours for anything to happen."

Jake sat down next to Neytiri and took her hand. Pallar looked around like some lost sheep and then sat down next to Silwanin's head. He carefully raised her up and scrunched forward until he could lay her head in his lap. He gently stroked her cheek. Rhada turned away, fists clenched.

"It's not your fault, Rhada." She looked to see Norm Spellman standing there.

"Then who's fault is it?" she said bitterly. She tried to walk away, but Ivan wouldn't let her get far. Too dangerous, he said. So she plopped down on the hard stones and put her face in her hands and tried not to cry.

She sat for as long as her nervous energy would permit and then she paced back and forth, alternately looking between the suffering women and their suffering menfolk and the huge bloody tree hanging over them. An hour went by and there was no change. She wracked her brain trying to find some answer, but there were just too many unknowns in the equation. _I'm a geologist, dammit! I don't know how to fix a broken god!_

Another hour passed and everyone was getting restless. The night seemed endless, but would the dawn bring any light?

Jake suddenly stood up. "It seems like they are suffering even more! Like it's getting worse instead of better! Grace, is it getting worse?" He looked toward the woman, but she didn't answer. "Damn it, Grace, tell me! Is it getting worse?"

Grace jerked her head in a convulsive twitch. "Yes," she gasped.

"But why? This ought to be helping!"

"Maybe they can't… despite what we've told them, they're all Na'vi… not scientists… they don't really understand… can't really explain to Eywa. Maybe… maybe I should try…"

"No!" cried Jake. "I'm not letting anyone else get stuck in this!"

"Someone's… got… to…" Grace staggered to her feet, but then doubled over and vomited. Jake was at her side in an instant.

Rhada stood and watched, her breath coming in short gasps. Grace was right: the Na'vi women couldn't really understand what had happened. In spite of their love for Eywa, they didn't understand.

_But I do!_

Almost without thinking she stepped forward and pressed the end of her queue against one of the branches.

"Rhada! Don't!" A dozen voices all seemed to scream at her at once, but they were fading away…

She fell into a sea of pain.

[Scene Break]

Max Patel stared in horror at his sister's avatar's crumpled body. He'd seen her step to the tree, seen what she was doing, but all he could do was shout. Ivan and Norm had shouted, too, but everyone was too far away to stop her. Ivan leaped to stand over her. His face was twisted in anguish and he had his knife in his hand.

"Ivan! Wait! Not yet!"

Ivan spun around. "It's either this or have them break the link back at the base!" he snarled. "I'm not going to let her go through this, too!"

"She's doing it to save the others! At least give her the chance to try!"

Ivan looked to his wife. After a long pause he cursed and put his knife away and straightened her out so she was lying on her back like the others. He knelt beside her. She was twitching and moaning just like them and Max gritted his teeth. What the hell should they do? But before he could think of anything to say his communicator pinged. It was Cynthia.

"Max! Max, is everything all right? Rhada's biometric readings just went through the roof. Is she all right?"

"We're not sure," he answered numbly. "Tell me about her readings."

"Well, heart rate, blood pressure and respiration are all up over fifty percent. Her brain readings are… Max, I've never seen readings like these before!"

"Is she in danger? As a doctor, Cynthia! Is she in danger?"

"Physically, no. I wouldn't want to see her stay like this for too long, but at the moment her body isn't in danger. She's strong and healthy and she can take this. But the brain readings… Max, I just don't know!"

"Okay, let me know if there's any change." He clicked off before she could ask anything else.

"One hour," said Ivan looking up and pointing a finger at him. "One hour, Max!" He looked over to Jake and he nodded.

The minutes crawled by. Max paced back and forth just like Rhada had been doing. He stared at the women, he stared at the tree, trying to force some change through sheer will. Nothing, of course, happened. Grace recovered a bit from her vomiting, but she was clearly in enormous pain. She lay curled up on her side near the other women.

The hour finally dragged to a close and everyone stirred. "How are we going to do this?" asked Norm. "Cut the branch on all of them, or disconnect Rhada at the base? All at once, or one at a time?"

"All at once, I'd say," said Max. "If Eywa does react… badly, we don't want anyone still linked. No telling what that might do to them."

"All right, what about Rhada? The button or the knife?" asked Ivan.

"Knife," said Max. "No point risking the avatar by leaving it hooked up. Three cuts or four, I don't think it will make much difference." He sure hoped he was right. The tree had hundreds of branches, so perhaps this wouldn't be crippling.

"Okay, let's do it," said Jake. "I've got Neytiri, Ivan, you've got Rhada, Norm, can you take Mo'at?" He looked at the boy, Pallar. "Son, can you release my daughter? Or would you rather someone else do it?"

The boy looked stunned. Max couldn't decide if it was because of what he'd been asked to do or because of what Jake had called him. He slowly pulled himself out from under Silwanin and stood up. "You can count on me to do what has to be done, sir."

"I was sure I could," said Jake. He pulled out his knife and the others did likewise. He took hold of the branch, just above where Neytiri's queue was joined to it. "Okay, on three? One…" Max held his breath…

"Uh, guys? Hold up a second." Everyone jumped. It was Harri Kim's voice.

"Holy shit," gasped Norm.

Max followed Norm's eyes and gasped himself. All around the rim of the well that held the Tree of Souls large, dark shapes moved. The light from the tree flickered on them, painting them garish colors. Hammerheads, sturmbeasts, Max spotted at least two thanators, and groups of viperwolves. Predators and prey animals mixed together, all staring down on them. The whistle of wings made him look up. Banshees circled overhead, silhouetted against shining Polyphemus, and there was another, larger shape among them. _Toruk!_ None of them made a sound.

"What… what's happening?" asked Pallar.

"Well, we were all wishing that something would happen," said Norm. "I think it has."

"Be careful what you wish for," hissed Jake.

"So what do we do?" asked Ivan.

"I think we wait."

"But…" he looked at his wife.

"No, Jake's right," said Max. "The animals aren't attacking. But they sure got our attention! I think Eywa—or someone—is asking us to wait."

"But for how long?"

"As long as it takes," said Jake. He put his knife away.

So they waited. Max resumed his pacing, but now his eyes moved not just between the women and the tree, but also to the watching animals. They completely surrounded the well so there was no way they could leave even if they could get the women loose. But what was going on? If Eywa had managed to assemble these animals—and keep them under control-then she must have at least some measure of rationality left, she wasn't completely psychotic, or schizophrenic or whatever the hell was the matter with her. He found that at least a bit hopeful. He checked in with Cynthia and Rhada's readings hadn't gotten any worse, either.

After almost an hour Pallar suddenly stiffened. "Do… do you hear that?"

Everyone froze and listened. Max didn't hear anything that he hadn't been hearing before, but he knew that human ears couldn't begin to match the sensitivity of a Na'vi. After a few moments Jake nodded. "I think so. Sort of a deep thrumming sound? Almost like a heartbeat?"

"Yes," said Pallar. "It's getting louder."

Max stood and listened and it wasn't long before even he could hear it. As Jake had said: like a heartbeat, except that each beat was stretched out, elongated, lasting four or five seconds. As the volume increased, the pulsations of red light in the Tree of Souls began to synchronize with the sound. This was the first change he'd seen since this all began and hope began to build in him. The pulses spread out from the tree and through the exposed roots on the ground. After a while pulses were coming back into the tree as well. And the noise got louder. Much louder.

"Damn, it's rattling my bones," whispered Harri Kim.

It was true, the low-pitched thrumming was actually shaking the ground and travelling right up through his legs. And as it went on he realized that at least some of the noise was coming from the surrounding animals. They were grunting in sync with the beating. And then the four trapped women were groaning, too. Their twitching became more pronounced. Everyone gathered around them and stared. Even Grace roused herself enough to watch.

"God, it's… it's like when my wife was in labor," said Max.

"Yeah," said Norm. "Yeah… exactly."

The noise grew louder yet and the women's groans became cries. It was heart-wrenching for the watching men, but everyone seemed paralyzed by the spectacle. The beat got faster, the pulses were coming more quickly. But were they…? Yes! The blood red light was slowly fading, changing color! Red became pink, pink faded to white and then with one last heartbeat that felt like it was going to burst Max's chest, one last cry from the women, it stopped.

The Tree of Souls stood glowing a faint blue and the forest was silent.

Max twisted his head around and he would have laughed if he's had the strength. All the animals were looking this way and that, seemingly stunned by who they found themselves standing next to. Thanator's stared at Sturmbeasts, Hammerheads gawked at viperwolves. And then all, all slowly began to back away, disappearing beyond the edge of the well. The banshees overhead veered off and Toruk made one last pass and vanished. The first light of dawn was just appearing in the east.

A chorus of groans brought his attention back where it had been for so many hours. The women's queues, almost as one, released their grips on the Tree's branches and fell away. Grace let out a long sigh and rested her head on her arms. Immediately the men were by the women's sides. Ivan and Jake had their wives in their arms. Pallar was holding Silwanin's hand. Norm knelt next to Mo'at. Max let Ivan have first crack at Rhada, but he moved up next to her and was relieved to see that her eyes were open and she seemed to be aware of her surroundings.

"H, Sis," he said.

"Hi, Max," she replied when Ivan stopped kissing her for a moment.

"That was a damn-fool stunt you pulled, you know?"

"Yeah, but I guess it worked, huh?"

"I guess it did. How do you feel?"

"Like I've been run over by a bulldozer. Can we get the hell out of here?"

"I'll call for the choppers."

[Scene Break]

Rhada walked with Ivan toward the little pavilion in the Heaven's Gate avatar compound. Max had decided to have a picnic and discuss the aftermath of the recent crisis. He didn't seem to realize how little she wanted to talk about it. She'd been trying not to even think about it. But there was no avoiding this. All the others who had been involved were already there and she found a seat at the big table.

"So, how is everyone feeling?" asked Cynthia. "Any unusual pains? Problems?" The others all said they were doing fine except for a few minor aches. Cynthia looked at her. "Rhada?"

"Physically I'm fine. But I've been having some very strange dreams—in my human form."

"You have passed through the Eye," said Mo'at. "You must expect this."

"Wonderful."

Mo'at looked at her with a shrewd expression. "You blame yourself for this. You should not. None here will place any blame on you."

"No one was seriously hurt, Rhada," said Max. "Eywa seems to be back to normal."

"We were lucky," she replied. "Damn lucky. And you know that this disruption wasn't confined just to this area, Max. It had to have been worldwide. Not everyone could have been as lucky as we were. I've got a hell of a lot of blood on my hands even if we haven't heard about it yet."

"You were searching for the truth," said Silwanin. The girl was sitting next to Pallar, holding his hand. "It is what you do, Rhada. No one will blame you for finding more than you were looking for. If a hunter finds a herd of talionangs no one blames him if someone is hurt in the ensuing hunt."

"And you were the one who tipped the balance in the end," said Neytiri. "The three of us could not have done it."

"No," said Silwanin. "Only the _science_ could make Eywa understand. But we could not explain the science. We even feared the science and made Eywa's pain all the worse. But you, you do not fear the science. You love it as we love Eywa. I can… I can still feel Eywa's wonder as you explained the motion of the worlds."

"You were really aware of each other while you were in there?" asked Norm.

"Oh yes," all four answered in unison. Even Rhada chuckled a little at that.

"Yes," continued Silwanin. "You showed Eywa the beauty of the science, the… the elegance of this math-e-matics. How things could be _explained_. Without you, all would have been lost. You saved us. Thank you." She touched her forehead and bowed.

Rhada blinked back tears. Damn. How'd this girl become so wise? She was going to make a hell of a tsahik… "Okay, okay, I'll stop feeling sorry for myself. Thanks." She looked around the table. "All of you, thanks."

An awkward silence descended for a moment, but then Max said: "Yeah, enough moping! You've got a hell of a lot of work to do! They don't give out Nobel Prizes until the paperwork is all done, y'know!"

"Max…." began Rhada.

"I'm serious," said her brother. "Between this lost civilization and all the hard data we now have on the Eywa phenomena we've got enough for a boxful of Nobel Prizes! You get the big flashy prize for the lost civilization, but if you don't get cracking I'll beat you to the punch with my Eywa studies!"

"Max, I'm a geologist, not an archaeologist. I study rocks."

"Not anymore!"

"Rocks, Max! I study rocks!" She shook her head. This was just too much.

"Rhada?" She looked up and saw Silwanin looking at her.

"Yes?"

"You have told us just the beginning of a wondrous story. I would very much like to know the rest of it. You have showed us how our people, working with Eywa, built a mighty civilization. Had not the great tragedy occurred, who knows what they might have accomplished. And now that I know what I know, I have no wish to go backwards. Eywa does not wish to go backwards! Maxpatel has said that She is 'back to normal', but while Eywa is happy again, She is _not_ the same as before. She has learned that there is more to the world than She thought. She wants to know more. _I_ want to know more!"

Rhada bowed her head, uncertain what to say.

"Deep radar scans have found a lot of other places where there might be ruins, Rhada," said Max with a smile.

"I… I'll think about it," she said.

"It would be an honor to assist you," said Silwanin. "The Heaven's Gate Clan knows the science. The other clans know Eywa and this world. Working together perhaps someday we can become greater than either of our two peoples alone."

"Without killing our mother in the process," said Jake.

"Amen," said Grace.

"I'll drink to that," said Norm.

And so they all did.

**Epilogue**

Silwanin and Pallar slowly approached the yerik they had been stalking all morning. They had almost reached a position to shoot twice before, but each time the wind had shifted and they'd had to try again from another direction. But this time it seemed like they might succeed. Slowly, slowly Pallar drew his bow. But then, at the last moment the beast suddenly bounded away, leaving them looking at nothing.

"I'm sorry," said Pallar. "I must have made a noise."

"I don't think so," replied Silwanin, standing up and sitting on a fallen log. "It is all right. Not every hunt ends in a kill." Pallar nodded and sat beside her. He really was very handsome. And kind. And smart. Being mated to him would be very pleasant, she thought. Father had already accepted him completely. Apparently Pallar had acted with courage and good sense during the crisis. Mother and Grandmother were refusing to say anything yet, but the outcome was hardly in doubt. And once he was formally adopted into the Omaticaya… well, then it would be up to her to decide on the time of their mating.

"Silwanin?"

"Yes?"

"There's something I would ask of you."

"Anything."

"When I agreed to come here I knew that I would be joining a clan far different from the one I was leaving. So many new things! The Thundering Rocks, the Tree of Souls, Toruk Macto! But…"

"What?"

"I have to ask: What just happened, the ruin, the lost city, Eywa…"

"Yes?"

"Does… does this sort of thing happen _often_ around here?"

Silwanin laughed.

"I hope not, Pallar! I really hope not!"

**The End**


End file.
